She's tempted to go look. Cape fights are always suitably dramatic and interesting to watch, usually. When she's not involved in them.

Instead she stays where she is and listens. Giving them space seems like the... polite thing to do. Even if it itches at her.

Orochimaru comes to find her an hour later. Sasuke leaves through the main door as he arrives.

"I'll have someone being books for you soon enough," is written on a piece of paper. "Are you settling in well?"

"Yup. The bed is comfy and the food was suitably nutritious. Thank you."

"I'm afraid the food doesn't get much better tasting than that, but we do try for nutritious." So, likely long enough to sleep and eat - probably without Sasuke there. The hot plate here hasn't been used, nor the drawers or cabinets opened. "Though if you can eat there without depleting resources here, we might be able to spare access to rarer foods."

She does not bounce. Nope.

"I am a very good cook and a very fast learner -- from your perspective anyway. I have all the time in the world. I'd be happy to cook for people if you gave me the resources."

He seems amused!

"Most shinobi here prefer to cook for themselves or eat rations, but I'll keep that in mind. You can be provided with more basic ingredients for yourself, too, of course."

She deflates a little bit, but nods.

"The offer stands, regardless." She pauses. "Shinobi? Is that what you call yourselves?"

"Yes. It means 'those who endure,' loosely, though most people pay too little attention to etymology. You might also hear 'ninja,' especially from non-shinobi."

"Huh. We had ninja -- shinobi -- in my world. My original world. Maybe five hundred years ago in Japan. I don't think they had magic like you or I, though. I think they were just mercenaries and spies."

"Fascinating. I wonder why that's similar?"

"Causality is a strange and mystical force. Not my area."

"Something to investigate, eventually. There are some who believe fate works in this world. I have found no such evidence, beyond what can be expected from similarities in personality across reincarnation cycles, but it is an interesting topic."

She tilts her head, curious.

"You have actual reincarnation? That's mostly just a concept, or a religious belief, in my world. How does that work?"

...She possibly shouldn't have asked that.

Have a long lecture on the relationship between will, chakra, and chakra transmigration! (The short version is that will generates and holds together yin chakra; when you die, your yang - bodily - chakra returns to the earth, while your yin chakra goes to the Pure Land. Someone of weak will might have their yin fall apart, but most people are purified, lose their memories, and then return to the world as a new person. The cycling yin chakra could be viewed as dragging along the associated soul, which therefore has multiple instantiations - which was quite a headache to work around with a technique like the Impure World Resurrection, which accesses a certain instantiation of the soul, using a piece of the original body, which still retains some yang chakra, creating a resonance...)

Ahklys is a very attentive listener and asks relevant questions -- it's really interesting. She kind of itches to take some notes, but she can do that later. Her memory is good enough to carry her that far, and she can spend some time reading more about it later. Well. If she gets access to his library again.

He really enjoys having an attentive student! Sasuke is amusing, but also a know-it-all brat bored by anything with subtle effects.

Akhlys is defiantly not Sasuke, that's for sure.

"I'd have a mind to take this Elsewhere, but I'm hesitant until you have a way to protect yourself. Hows your head now? Maybe I should stop talking for a while."

"I'm fine. And I'll need a look at it to develop anything."

She holds out her hand.

"No time like the present."

Hand holding can be done.

-- and they're Elsewhere. The shadows press down on them ominously.

He appreciates this place'd commitment to the aesthetic. Sip many shinobi have no sense of style.

He pauses for a moment, almost meditating, and hums. "I can get a sense of what's going on. I'll want to be more comfortable to meditate properly. Follow me." And out into the hallway; the door doesn't open for him either, so he makes it melt into the walls. He eventually winds up in a room nearby the study Sasuke took her to. It is rather well designed for meditation.

She follows, kind of jealous about how easily he -- and Sasuke, really -- are able to get around. She usually has to either pick locks or break things down manually. Or find a key. Which always takes much longer than this. Feels like cheating, a little.

"Cozy."

"I prefer peace for my meditation," he says, lighting a few candles and sticks of incense. It smells faintly sweet and woody, with a sharp undertone like licorice. He sits fairly simply, afterwards, in a cleared circle in the middle, and settles easily into the rhythm of the world around him and his own mind - teasing apart what it's doing.

She leans against the wall and gives him his peace. If such a thing is possible here.