Shikamaru glanced to the opening door and gave the elder ninja's excuse a quiet snort. Although he rolled his eyes, he didn't hide his relief: Kakashi seemed to be his usual self, which meant that Shikamaru's judgment had been sound when dividing the Leaf-nin into compatible teams.

He sat up to reach for his journal while Sai spoke to Kakashi, then ripped out a page and held it out along with a second folded sheet. "The code, and a map of the outdoors just in case," he explained. He didn't elaborate on what that case might be. Shikamaru hadn't bothered to rewrite his more detailed notes about the monsters beyond the institute walls, since their team wasn't heading into that territory, but since the map was hard to come by, he didn't want to be the only Leaf-nin with it committed to memory. After that, he grabbed his scalpels from the mattress and stood up, ready to get this thing over with as quickly as possible.

Sai's answer, however, made him pause. Their access to chakra wasn't steady? Fantastic. Just what he needed. Changing rules in a game that was troublesome enough on its own. But then, this place didn't even obey death...he'd been an idiot to expect reliability in anything. Shikamaru groaned as he slid the scalpels into the band around his leg. "What's this visitor thing?"