Chapter 15: Since You're Gone

Surveying the lab, Shikaku had to admit they were making some progress. Toward what, he still was not sure, but they were at least acquring a lot of data. They had more than just the two samples he'd seen Jiraiya and Orochimaru deliver. Obviously this had been known about at certain levels for some time now, just in order for the work on the lab to be authorized and completed. But he still had a lot of unanswered questions. Such as how long she herself had been working on this.

"Tsunade, can I ask you some questions?"

"Of course, Shikaku," she replied then paused, "Is everything okay?"

Damn. There she went again along that line of thinking. He wished he never had asked her about kunoichi kits… for a lot of different reasons.

"About this," he motioned around the lab, "the work here."

"Yes, of course. I imagine you do have a lot of questions. I'm sorry, I said I'd fill you in but I don't think I've done a very good job beyond the first day. I was a little…distracted then."

He thought back to her behavior around Jiraiya that day and had to admit that her mind had certainly been elsewhere. And they'd never really discussed any "big picture" sort of stuff since that day. He was just executing tests and recording data as she ordered him to.

"Well, this just didn't happen over night…" again he motioned around the lab. The building was somewhat distant from the center of town but by no means was it hidden. He knew it had been under construction for months before he'd been assigned to this misson, as had the entire rest of Konoha that had reason to be in the area.

"The bulding, yes, you're right, it was originally intended to be a multi-purpose disease research lab, but this project took precedence."

"So that explains the reverse pressure room?" He noted that they hadn't really had any reason to use that yet. There was nothing they had worked on so far that would indicate there was any danger of a biological agent escaping. He would prefer if that remained the case.

Tsunade smiled just a little bit at that. "Yes, so far there's no reason to think the effects we've seen are anything other than the result of the chemical compounds contained in the pills. We just sort of inherited it as part of setting up shop in their shiny new Center for Disease Research building."

"I see. So when did you decide to co-opt their building?"

"We started hearing…something about a syndrome affecting, killing genjutsu users, first in the Land of Rain a year ago, but scattered reports started coming in from other locations as well. It didn't make sense, it wasn't a disease that we were tracking the cases were isolated, there didn't seem to be a vector of contamination. The genjutsu users who weren't dead when they were brought in to hospital were already comatose and their bodies would shut down soon after. Finally we got a lead from the Land of Lightning, Jiraiya got some information about a new drug being pushed to genjutsu users there."

"Jiraiya?"

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "Believe me, he has contacts in places you don't even want to know about."

The two sat silently for a few seconds and Shikaku thought Tsunade was collecting her thoughts to continue her background discussion of their project. But she surprised him by asking him a question. "So, what nonsense has he been filling your head with?"

"What? Oh, well, nothing really," Shikaku realized that he couldn't lie worth a damn to her. He stuttered and then added "He hasn't said anything to me about this drug. " Which was technically true when you thought about it. Jiraiya had just repeated in front of Chouza and Inoichi what Tsunade had already told him that day. The rest of the discussion hadn't been about the lab or anything going on in the lab. No, it had all just been Jiraiya's take on the socio-political implications of such a drug. And besides, they'd been stoned. So, yes, technically Jiraiya had not told him anything about this drug.

"Shikaku?" She leaned forward and he had to fight to keep his eyes on hers and not let his gaze travel down to her chest.

"Yes?"

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

Now what the hell did she want to know that for? Hell, how should he answer that? Say yes and she's going to go back on her "I-can-write-her-a-prescription" kick. Say no, and she'd catch him in a lie. But he didn't actually have a girlfriend. There was one particular girl that he'd like to be a lot friendlier with but they'd never said anything to each other about "boyfriend/girlfriend" status. So no, technically he did not have a girlfriend.

"No." He lied.

Tsunade sat back up and laughed. "Don't ever lie to her, Shikaku, you can't lie worth shit. So tell me, what did the old toad pervert tell you about this?"

"Nothing that I didn't already know from you," Shikaku answered honestly.

"Mmmmhmmm, did he share any of his own theories with you?"

"I….he…," well, shit, should he tell her? Jiraiya hadn't really told him to keep things from Tsunade, he seemed to want Tsunade to see things his way. And how could she do that if she didn't know what his view of the world was? So, operating under the assumption that Jiraiya hadn't told him anything he'd not already told Tsunade, he shared with her the Toad sage's theory that shinobi might be behind it.

Tsunade sat very still for awhile. Then she asked, "And Orochimaru was with him?"

"Yes."

Shikaku waited for her to say something else but she didn't. "Tsunade? Is something wrong?" As if there wasn't enough wrongness sitting right in front of him in the form of a few green pills that had the potential to alter the Hidden Villages very way of life.

Tsunade sighed and closed her eyes. "You know, sometimes I'm afraid that…that when someone spends all their time looking underneath the underneath that they may…they may see things that aren't there."

She looked up at him, a shattered expression in her honey-colored eyes. "I'm worried about him, Shikaku," she whispered.

Not knowing what to say, it was his turn to sit there still for a few minutes.

"Look, let's don't start any new runs this afternoon," she said, turning back to her microscope, all business again. "We'll finish the ones we have started and knock off early today, say around two."

"Tsunade, I don't mind staying, I might just as well stay since…"

"Don't worry about it," she said, "We'll get out of here early today and you can go spend time with your girlfriend. I know I kept you from her a lot last week. Besides, I need to go find Orochimaru."

Well, this was just great, Shikaku grumbled to himself. Work this past week had helped keep his mind off Yoshino. Now it looked like he was going to have some free time on his hands and Yoshino wasn't due back in for another nine days. Terrific.

True to her word, Tsunade was packed up and ready to leave the lab at two-thirty. They parted ways outside the lab after locking up.

Shikaku checked on Chouza and Inoicha. Not back yet. So, no one to hang out with there. That left him alone with his thoughts. He tried to run through everything he knew about this mess. Clearly, the genjutsu-enhancer was bad news all around. And he had to agree 100% with Jiraiya on this – whoever had made it had certainly intended to create something so utterly addictive. That was certainly no accident. So did that leave it as a drug, or were we talking something designed as a weapon to entice and then incapacite a percentage of a hidden village's fighting force. What he wasn't sure he agree with was Jiraiya's suspicion of who was behind it.

That night in his apartment, it had seemed blindingly clear that Jiraiya was on to something. Of course he was always going to have to qualify that with the fact that he was stoned.

And wasn't that just weird in and of itself. Why in the hell would those two just 'drop in' on him and his friends? WTF?

He hadn't really paid attention to where he was going. When he got like this, running things down systematically in his mind, over and over again, trying to see if there was something he'd overlooked, his feet just always seemed to automatically know where they were going. In short order he was in the meadow, lying on his back, looking up at the clouds.

He lay there gazing up into the sky, the wide vault of blue seemed to let him open his mind and try to take in a broader perspective than otherwise. Deep in thought, he was disturbed by a poof and a rustle of air.

Not even bothering to get up, he just looked to the side through slitted eyes and saw Jiraiya.

"She thinks you're crazy, you know. Tsunade thinks you're crazy," Shikaku said, returning his gaze to the blue sky above.

"Really? Huh. You learn something new every day." Jiraiya sat down beside him and took out his pipe, filling it with tobacco. "Here's something new for you to learn. She thinks you're cute, you know. Tsunade thinks you're cute. Too bad for you, you've got a girlfriend."

Shikaku yawned and stretched, sitting up. "Yeah, too bad for you, she's got a boyfriend," he tossed back. He studied Jiraiya carefully, watching his spine stiffening ever so slightly, front teeth clenching the pipe a little too hard. Too late, it dawned on him that this was not Inoichi or Chouza that he was fooling around with and did he really want to piss the guy off?

"Yeah, too bad," Jiraiya said nonchalantly, not fooling Shikaku one bit.

"Do you mind telling me why she thinks you're crazy?" Shikaku asked.

Jiraiya took his time, puffing on his pipe, Shikaku watching the smoke spiral skywards. The only sound was that of the birds in the trees and the cicadas in the background. Finally he spoke quietly to the younger man, "Tsunade forgets that if you spend your time looking underneath the underneath, you're bound to turn up something rotten and decayed."