The entire mission had been like a roller coaster…one moment the team was up and hopeful that success was right around the corner…the next, full of doubt. A few days in their new situation had passed and still nothing had come to fruition. Sakura and Kankuro had both found jobs in the small village and were quickly learning not only the names and information that their co-workers could provide, but also things about some of the customers who were constantly coming through.

Sai got the good end of the deal. There was no work involved for him. He simply meandered through the forest near the house in question keeping tabs on anything unusual…and there hadn't been much. So he drew…and drew some more.

Things came to a head once again one evening when all of the shinobi were back inside their homebase once again.

"Did you hear anything?" Kankuro asked Sakura.

"I'm afraid not…and I even got a chance to ask rather directly today," she answered. "The guy who lives in that house is most certainly named Kanoshi. I think we are almost there with respect to knowing that Sasori's relative lives there. But so far nothing to definitively prove that he is the one committing these crimes."

"You got further than me," admitted Kankuro. "I don't know where he gets his supplies for puppetry, but it is most certainly not in this small village. Either that or he stocked up long ago. No one I've come in contact with has ever even seen the man."

Jento sighed.

"What's wrong, Jento?" Sai asked.

"This isn't going very fast at all," Jento lamented.

Sai smiled at the young shinobi. "I'm sure you've heard many stories from your senseis about exciting missions from the past," he started.

Jento nodded his head.

"Well, they aren't always that way," explained Sai. "Many of them are, in fact, just like this one…lots of time and patience is required."

"But don't you guys feel like there's got to me more than just sitting here?" Jento asked. "At least you get to go out. I'm stuck here….literally….most of every day. I didn't get watch duty, and now I don't even get to get a job!"

"I didn't get a job either," said Sai.

"That's not the point!" shouted Jento.

Kankuro put his hand on Jento's shoulder. "Give it a few more days," he said. "We'll revisit what we're doing again if nothing has changed by then."

"Alright," said Jento, resigned that nothing would change in the short term no matter how loudly he complained. After all, he was very young and this was one of his first real missions ever. Even though he had added good intel to the cause, he still wasn't going to be listened to about stuff like this.

OlOlOlOlOlO

The next day started just as the past few had with the three elder shinobi going their separate ways and Jento remaining at homebase.

Sai decided to circle the house in question before settling down underneath a large tree facing a pond just a few feet off the pathway that led to the house.

As usual, nothing going on, he thought to himself. Jento seemed really upset yesterday. I wonder if we really are wasting our time.

He reached into the dark green sack that he was carrying (after all, he was in villager clothes and needed a pack to match) and brought out his sketchbook. Then he reached back in to retrieve a case that contained a few charcoal pieces. During this mission, he had decided to go a little more basic and do a little sketching with charcoal instead of using black or colored ink.

He sat there sketching the landscape of the trees surrounding the pond on the other side for about a half hour when….

"Hello," said a voice from behind him and over his right shoulder.

He must have jumped a few feet in the air from his seated position. Sai frantically turned around to see who had just greeted him.

"Whoa, child," said the male voice grabbing hold of Sai as he scrambled to get up.

"I-I'm sorry," said Sai. "You really surprised me."

"My apologies," said the man. "It was not my intention at all. I wasn't trying to sneak up on you, but you must have been deep in thought to have not noticed me."

Sai paused for a few seconds. His brain activated quite quickly to take in what was going on. There were both positives and negatives as to what had just happened. On the negative side, he didn't know who this man was, but he had never seen him before and he fit the age profile of Kanoshi. He also had red hair. Also on the negative side, Sai may have been sketching, but in no way did he drop his guard at all. He should have sensed this man's approach, which meant that either he had little-to-no chakra at all, or he was very skilled at hiding it. On the positive side, this was definitely a change from the last few days. Perhaps this was a new lead.

"Who are you?" Sai finally asked the man.

"The name's Kanoshi," he replied. "I live near here." He let out a gigantic smile.

Sai didn't reply at first, so Kanoshi gave him a strange look.

"Oh! My apologies….my name is….," Sai started. Then he realized he should have already had a cover name picked out.

"Is what?" Kanoshi asked. "Don't you even know your own name?"

"O-Of course," said Sai. "My name is Dan-, He started to spit out the first alternate name that came to his mind, which in this case happened to be "Danzo", but stopped himself when he thought that name might be too far-reaching to use it without suspicion. "Dan is my name." That was passable. Sakura had once told him the story of Lady Tsunade's past love with that name.

"I have noticed you over these past few days, Dan. I was always very curious as to what you were doing out here, but now I see you are a simple villager who is just drawing some pictures," Kanoshi said. "Do you like to draw? You are really quite good at it."

"Thank you," said Sai. "I am currently not working, so I do this to fill up my days. It really is quite enjoyable. Do you draw as well, Kanoshi?"

"Draw? Oh heavens no. Though I am told I am quite the artist in other respects," Kanoshi answered.

This really sounds like it could be him, Sai thought to himself.

"In what other respects?" asked Sai. "Do you sculpt instead of draw?" He knew he couldn't be too obvious, but needed to continue the conversation as long as he could.

"Sculpt?" Kanoshi repeated. "In a way, yes. Perhaps someday I will invite you to look at some of my art."

"That would be lovely," said Sai. He caught that he wasn't being invited today.

"I really need to get going," said Kanoshi to his new acquaintance. He started to take a few steps back towards the path. "If you are here tomorrow, perhaps I will see you again."

Sai smiled one of his fake smiles. "It was nice meeting you."

"Likewise," Kanoshi said as he turned one last time. He gave a final wave before making his way back along the path.

Sai turned to look at the lake again. He let out a gigantic exhale as he started to revisit what had just happened.

OlOlOlOlOlOlO

When Sai returned home late that same afternoon, he quickly relayed what had happened to him earlier. He figured he shouldn't leave where he was sitting too quickly else it might look overly suspicious. After all, was the contact made earlier a result of random fate? Or did Kanoshi know someone was close to his home and want to figure out if that person was a threat or not…and did he figure anything out? Sai had to admit to himself, the encounter wasn't the smoothest he had ever been a part of.

"What did you say, Sai? You're so hyper I could hardly understand you," said Sakura, who was presently in the kitchen preparing a dinner for everyone.

"I said, I may have made contact with Kanoshi…well, er, I did make contact with Kanoshi," Sai blurted out.

"You did?" questioned Kankuro. "How do you know it was him?"

"He told me his name when he introduced himself to me. And he had red hair," replied Sai.

"What?!" Kankuro exclaimed as it finally kicked in. "Well, tell us what happened already!"

"I was just getting to that," Sai said as he grabbed a drink of water and sat down on the couch.

"It was very strange," he started. "I was just sitting there against a tree, not far from the path that led to his house. Suddenly he was standing behind me talking to me. He startled me at first…."

"Wait a second, you didn't sense him approaching?" Jento asked.

"No, not at all. There wasn't a sound at all…and I didn't sense his chakra," confirmed Sai.

Jento looked deep in thought. "So he must have been cloaking his chakra," he said aloud, more to himself than anything.

"I thought the same thing," agreed Sai. "Either he wasn't Kanoshi and was instead a normal villager with very little chakra or he was masking it on purpose."

"No, he was Kanoshi alright. He was masking it so that you couldn't detect it. Any shinobi would have done the same in those circumstances. We just don't know what he thought of you. You're still here in one piece, so apparently he didn't think you were much of a threat. That's a good thing," said Kankuro.

"I agree," said Sai.

"So what's the plan from here?" asked Sakura. "We can now be fairly sure that it is his house, and it is Kanoshi, but we still can't make any definitive connection to the attacks."

"Let me guess….more time," said Jento.

"You got it little one," said Kankuro. "Sai, you should continue your daily visits to that area and see if you are approached again."

"That was my thought, too," said Sai. "He seemed interested in my drawings. He said that he was an artist, too. I asked if he sculpted and he answered 'in a way, yes'. Perhaps he is intrigued by me and will visit again."

"Just keep your guard up," said Kankuro. "He may or may not suspect you at this point. You could be totally good-to-go for an infiltration….or he could just be playing with you and plans to attack you later."

"I know," said Sai.

"So do we quit our jobs?" asked Sakura. "I'm sure we won't get much else from them at this point."

"Yes, we will monitor Sai on our own just to make sure he stays safe. We'll leave enough distance so that we won't be detected in case he is approached."

"We've got radio devices as well. I can set one for send only and one for receive only…that way we can stay out of sight yet still hear what is going on," said Sakura.

"Good idea," said Kankuro.

"…and I'm going to stay here still?" asked Jento.

"Hm…," Kankuro thought.

"I suppose you can come with us. It will be good experience for you to see what it is like in the field for real. Though, if anything happens, you have to promise to stay behind. I don't want you to get killed when you haven't even been out of the Academy for a year yet."

"Agreed!" Jento exclaimed. He was now going to potentially play a bigger part in this mission…and he was finally going to leave this house!

OlOlOlOlOlOlO

Sai ended up having to wait another two days before the target of his surveillance once again made contact.

Again, so as not to appear too obvious, Sai chose not to sit in the same location every day. Today he was sitting in a field more towards the rear of the house. Kanoshi approached from the direction of the house. Although Sai could still not sense any chakra emanating from this man, Kanoshi did not make any attempt to hide any of his sounds this time.

"Good afternoon, Dan," Kanoshi greeted.

"Good afternoon to you as well, Kanoshi," Sai greeted in return.

Sakura, sitting safety in a tree more than a quarter mile away, heard the entire exchange through her earpiece. Dan? she repeated in her mind. Interesting choice for a cover name.

"Are you still drawing the same picture I saw before? Or have you moved on to another one?" Kanoshi asked.

"Oh, it doesn't take long for me to finish one drawing," explained Sai. "Perhaps I am just not intricate enough, but one afternoon is more than enough time to finish a single page."

Kanoshi was now standing over Sai's head. "You must have just gotten started."

"Yes, I've only been here for about an hour," Sai explained.

"Another landscape?" Kanoshi asked.

"Yes and no," said Sai. "I am using this field as a reference, but nothing here is my main focus. I found myself thinking about my brother last evening and suddenly I had the urge to do a drawing of him."

"Your brother is not at home with you?" Kanoshi asked. "You are quite young, perhaps he has moved away with his own family?"

"I'm afraid my brother is dead," Sai replied, as blunt as ever.

"Oh my," Kanoshi said. "I'm sorry if I opened any old wounds." For whatever reason, it was at this moment that Kanoshi decided to take a seat on the ground next to Sai.

Sai continued to draw in his sketchbook as the two men sat side-by-side in silence. Although he couldn't be sure, Sai thought that Kanoshi's decision to sit next to him was a sign that perhaps he was becoming a bit more comfortable with his presence near his home.

"What about your parents, Dan? Are they still a part of your life?" Kanoshi asked.

"No," Sai replied. "They were killed just after I was born. I was a war orphan."

Kanoshi's facial expression looked very sad to Sai.

"I, too, am without family," said Kanoshi. "I'm sure you already know how hard it can be without anyone's support behind you."

Sai immediately thought of all the friends that he had made in the Leaf. Although he didn't have family, like Naruto, he had never known his family. Though in his case, his friends had filled that gap nicely and all that he knew was that he was very happy and satisfied. But that was for him to know and not for this particular conversation.

"It can be very lonely," Sai added.

"Do you mind if I ask how your brother died?" Kanoshi pressed.

Sai didn't think it was appropriate to be discussing this sort of thing with a virtual stranger. However, not sharing at all meant that this opportunity to gather more intel might be wasted. He weighed whether he should just make something up, but decided that for consistency's sake – in case it ever came up again – that he would just tell the truth.

"He was very ill. We were about the same age, which made it harder when he died because at the time, we only had each other. One day, he just coughed up a lot of blood and succumbed to his disease," Sai explained.

"Were you then old enough to join the shinobi corps when he died?" Kanoshi asked.

Sai paused in a panic. "Shinobi?" he said aloud. "I'm no shinobi. I don't know what you're talking about."

Kanoshi smiled at him to break the tension he had just caused. "Oh, my mistake," he said. "For whatever reason, I thought that you were. I just assumed…."

Sai smiled in return not sure if that was a test and if it was, if he passed or not. This man surely kept him on his toes. As soon as he thought he was being genuine, another probing and accusatory question or statement would come along.

"I am a simple villager. I moved here recently looking for a new start in some place smaller than the one I came from. I'm sure I'm not the first villager here that is merely looking for a clean slate. Although I haven't found work yet, I do enjoy drawing. I always have. So I have come to this place to be outdoors and enjoy nature. As you already know, I have no family and no support. I have always had to cater to others and I am not about to start again now with you. I don't mind a friendly conversation or even answering some of your questions, but if you are going to accuse me of something…," Sai said.

Kanoshi was not expecting to be lectured. He was a bit stunned at Sai's outburst. He obviously did want to be left alone. "No, no, my apologies my dear Dan. I didn't mean to offend you in any way." He rose to his feet. "Now if you'll excuse me, I do have an appointment to keep. It was very nice talking with you. If you decide to continue coming to this area, I'm sure we will meet again."

Sai nodded at the slightly older shinobi and kept right on sketching.