16autumnroad | [Voice / Action : Forest, 3/17] Arrival

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[Voice / Action : Forest, 3/17] Arrival

Kai! [Sudden absence from the battlefield prompts Chouji's immediate attempt to dispel an illusion.]

Why won't the genjutsu break? It must be too strong. [Not to mention that genjutsu and fine chakra control are not his strongest skills. Pain should also work. It's hardly the preferred method for breaking illusions, but it's more reliable for anyone whose chakra control isn't near perfect. He reaches for a kunai, but none is available. Unarmed and unarmored in a genjutsu that could be used to do pretty much anything to him; somehow that isn't surprising. Chouji is starting to worry though. He crouches down, snatches a jagged rock, and slices open his left palm. Still nothing.

Unwilling to simply sit and wait, he pushes off lightly, leaping into the trees. Chouji conceals himself as well as he can among the branches, only now noticing the journal lying open on the ground below. Shivering from the cold, a twinge of pain between his shoulder blades makes Chouji twitch, wondering if the attack he's been braced for is finally coming. His eyes widen as he looks over his shoulder to see a pair of feathered wings. A little desperate now, Chouji makes one final attempt at breaking free. He stabs his thigh with the rock. Still trapped, he resigns himself to staying here until someone manages to free him, letting the stone fall back to the ground. Chouji keeps watch for any further signs of danger on the off chance the genjutsu's caster slips and gives something away.]

[Chouji can heard over the journal; he will pick it up as soon as he receives an answer. He can also be found in the forest or anywhere in the common areas of town after he eventually makes it there.]

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"He does! I'm sure he'll be glad to show it to you. And I'm not sure if he could, but you could always ask him! He can be really good at things."

"I see," he said with his own sympathetic nod. "I had a lot of worries when I first came here, because of that. Because I hadn't been able to be there for my friends. But I've been doing what I can to try to make up for it. And... and they made sure I knew that I was missed."

"And bending? That's the special ability we have in our world!" he goes on, perking up a bit. "In that world, there are people who can manipulate one of the four elements in any way with physical movements. That's bending!"

"Maybe I will. Ah, here!" Rummaging through clothes as they talk, Chouji sees something he recognizes. He pulls a heavy green vest out of the pile, followed by a long red shirt and a plain pair of pants. He still needs shoes, though.

Then Aang describes exactly how Chouji feels right now, and the look he shoots his new friend in return is full of unspoken gratitude. Aang understood.

"Movements alone? Is anything else necessary, like chakra is for my jutsus?" Then he gets to the more relevant question. "Can you bend any of the elements?"

Aang watches as Chouji picks out the clothes with contentment as he goes on.

"Kind of. I think chakras are different for us than they are for you guys. But it does have to do with the energy within us. And... yeah. I can kind of bend all of them!"

Chouji nods at the part about chakras, still searching for his sandals, but he looks up when Aang finishes. "All of them? Really?"

Elemental manipulation isn't quite as limited to one element for shinobi, but no one has every elemental affinity. He flashes back for a second to the battles with Kakuzu, but that doesn't count. The Akatsuki member was just stealing other other people's power.

Aang initially said one of the four elements. "What are the four elements you can bend? We have five."

"Yep!" An eager nod. "All of them! But it's only because I'm the Avatar."

"But that's right... Shikamaru told me a little about your elements once. They're a little different than ours! We have air, water, earth and fire. I can show you how some work!"

"What's the Avatar?" Genuine curiosity here.

"Air is probably close enough to wind, and then we just have lightning on top of that. I'd like to see how they work! I could show you a little bit of what I do in exchange." Ninja secrecy only goes so far. Chouji's never been a subtle sort of fighter anyway, and people rarely fail to notice an Akimichi fighting or training. Besides, if Aang is friends with Shikamaru and now with Chouji, that's justification enough.

"Well in my world, the Avatar's someone who can use all four of the elements and has to use them to keep peace in the world and solve problems."

And he listens curiously as Chouji describes that. "Really? That'd be neat! I - I can't do anything with lightning, but I'd be glad to show you some of any other kind of bending!"

"That sounds like a very important job." Aang is even younger than he is, and Chouji knows he wouldn't want that much expectation to rest on his shoulders. Aang's cheerful nature impresses him even more now.

Finally, he pulls his second sandal out of a giant pile of shoes.

Chouji nods. "You can show me whatever you want. I'll show you too, but we have to be outside. Let me just change into these clothes first."

"It is pretty important," he says, a little quietly. He doesn't want to brag - at least not about that. Now when he has airbending tricks.

"Okay, sure! How about I show you one really cool trick first?"

Chouji is just as happy to let the subject shift back to lighter things like airbending tricks.

"Alright! Go ahead." He's curious about how bending works in comparison to elemental ninjutsu, and Aang is enthusiastic enough about the demonstration that Chouji mirrors the emotion, grinning.

"Okay, then! Watch carefully!"

Aang grins in anticipation as he reaches into his shirt and pulls out something concealed between his hands. He slowly opens them, and...

He laughs. The small, harmless trick is a nice surprise for a shinobi, trained in jutsu for the purpose of combat. He's sure Aang has more destructive abilities, and just as sure that Aang doesn't enjoy using them for that purpose. This fits his personality better.

"Very nice," he praises Aang sincerely, an amused smile still on his face. "Let me change and we can do some more!"

And he beams at the praise as he slows the marbles to a stop.

"Sure! Go ahead, Chouji."

Chouji ducks out of sight for a minute and emerges in his jacket, pants, vest, and shoes. "I'm all set!" He gestures toward the door, eager to see a little more of what Aang can do.

Once they're outside, Chouji offers his own first technique. "I can change the size of my body. Like this." And he expands one of his fists to the size of his torso, grinning at his new friend. Aang's techniques all involve manipulating the elements, the natural world, while Chouji's involve manipulating his own body.

"Neat! I really like your armor!" Aang says with a cheery smile before following him outside.

And then he watches in surprise. "Whoa! It's like you're... sizebending! Chouji, that's incredible!" It's easy to impress Aang, but this is still especially awesome to him.

Edited 2013-05-24 00:53 (UTC)

A grin breaks out across his face, and Chouji laughs. Sizebending is a brand new term, but it's not inaccurate. "I guess so! Thank you, Aang." Chouji is proud of his clan and his techniques, and he takes the appreciation as a compliment to both.

"What kinds of things can you do with your bending when you have a bit more space?" he asks eagerly. Since Aang is the first person Chouji's met from another world, this is also the first he's seen of abilities from other worlds.

"Oh, all kinds of things! Check this out, Chouji!" And he gathers the air around him into a sphere between his hands, and he proceeds to hop onto it. "This is the air scooter!"

He chuckles again, nodding approval of the air scooter. "That looks like a really fun way to get around! Do you use it often?"

"Uh-huh!" An eager nod as he shifts around a bit to demonstrate it. "Lots of the time! But I also have my glider and Appa to help with getting around."

"A glider? Can you fly?" Glider sounds like something that would be used for gliding through air, anyway. "And what's Appa?"

"Yep, with my airbending it's like flying! And Appa... he's my sky bison. He's big and silly and great!"

Presumably a sky bison is some sort of flying creature, but Chouji can't picture one. "I've never heard of a sky bison before. He's from your world, but he's here?"

"That's right!" He nodded in confirmation while stretching his arms out as wide as he could to give an impression of Appa's size. "It's one weird thing about this place. Certain animals that we're bonded to, they can show up here, too. Without wings - and experiments don't bother them, either. They just don't speak our languages still." Unlike the native animals.

"Why would they speak our languages? Do animals usually do that where you come from?" Chouji has yet to meet any squirrels or birds or stray cats.

[Voice / Action : Forest, 3/17] Arrival

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