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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"Shikamaru!" The whole situation is bewildering and worrying, and Chouji still doesn't understand enough of what's going on. That doesn't seem to matter quite as much, though, when he hears Shikamaru. His best friend has always been the strongest source of reassurance in Chouji's life. That hasn't changed. Both of his teammates are here, and Team Ten has always been stronger as a unit than they are separately.

Chouji smiles in spite of himself, adding a little guiltily, "Ino's already scolded me, so you don't have to." After all, if Ino can figure out what Chouji did, he highly doubts Shikamaru will fail to reach the same conclusion. "She didn't yell, though."

That very thing wasn't hard to figure out, no. Especially with Luceti's journals, where you can play back other people's conversations.

"I know. She doesn't have to raise her voice to give you a better earful than I could." He smirks, crooked. That is an aspect of Team 10 that can change, even between worlds. "It's troublesome, but trust me that what everyone is telling you is true. All right?"

Chouji chuckles. Ino's sharp tongue has always been a central part of the Team 10 dynamic, and he really doesn't mind it. At Shikamaru's next statement, he grows more serious, nodding. "I've been given enough reasons to believe it isn't a genjutsu by now," Chouji admits.

"All of it, though?" Sakura covered some of the most difficult parts for Chouji to accept, and he is almost afraid to ask Shikamaru for confirmation. Shikamaru has been here for years. The dead can be brought here, alive again. Asuma.

"How long?" How long has Shikamaru been here, and how much has Chouji missed?

Some of the enthusiasm dips out of his voice - not enough to imply that this is a hurtful subject, but he isn't looking forward to this conversation. Chouji won't like to hear it. In the beginning, they were here together, side-by-side, and now...

"Let me explain things when I find you, Chouji. I know this place well, so it shouldn't be hard finding your location." He centers himself at a good angle before giving further instruction. "Do you have enough chakra to get to the top of a tree?"

"Sakura already explained a little too much for that to make a difference, I think," Chouji informs him softly. "I'll wait, though." He regrets saying anything to make Shikamaru stop smiling, but he'd rather get that particular question over with as soon as possible.

Since it's Shikamaru, there probably isn't long to wait anyway. Chouji brightens at the question. "Of course! I'm already in a tree. I'll choose a tall one so you can find me more easily." He considers the surrounding area, then chooses a pine with branches well-spaced enough to avoid too much brushing up against uncomfortable needles, given he still isn't wearing a shirt.

It would be. Those are the only kind of questions that matter to Chouji.

He doesn't voice what's to come out loud.

"Good. When you're situated, try and spot the mountains from where you're at. If you can see them, tell me approximately what direction they are from you. The distance from your position too, if you can judge it."

"East, northeast, southeast." He pauses and frowns as he gauges the distance by sight, then adds, "Probably 30 miles from me at the nearest point, maybe just a little bit more or less. I told Ino I could hear water; that's to my north."

Shikamaru is right to wait. It probably won't hurt quite as badly once he they're together, because at least Shikamaru will be there. Chouji does wish, at least a little bit, that he could spare his friend his reaction to the conversation.

That's silly, though. Shikamaru's smart enough he'd know how Chouji feels whether he sees it or not.

Edited (I should probably not type west when I mean east.) 2013-03-18 13:31 (UTC)

"All right. I have an approximate idea now of where to find you. Hold tight, Chouji!"

Shikamaru decides he'll start from the water source. From that distance, it would have to the river leading to the western lake. He shoves off from the tree he was traveling on in that direction, with the intention to spread out from there as he gets closer.

Chouji knows that the water source is probably the most helpful landmark, so he doesn't intend to stay exactly where he is. "I'll meet you by the river, alright?"

He's moving before he actually hears an answer. Once he reaches the riverbank, Chouji chooses a branch that is fairly visible both from the trees and the ground. He perches there, settling in to wait for Shikamaru.

"Roger that." That's Team 10 for you. Even if the three of them haven't been together in over a year, teamwork is more natural than breathing in some respects.

Given how much time Shikamaru's spent in these forests, it doesn't take long for him to come along the river. It's a thirty minute wait at the most thanks to ninja skills, and the way people from Konoha use trees as their own personal highway. He shut his journal for the time being too, to speed up the process. Now it's just a matter of who spots who first.

Alert for any flicker of movement in the trees, Chouji drops to the ground and waves the second he catches a glimpse of his teammate. "Shikamaru!"

Chouji beams at his best friend. Regardless of what Shikamaru may tell him now, none of it seems quite so daunting anymore.

The reaction is instant. In the space of time it took to get here, Shikamaru's typical unbothered-by-the-world expression had taken dominance, even hurried as he was. All traces of that disappear when Chouji drops down in front of him, however.

A moment to register - it is him and this is real - and then a wide smile breaks out over his face again. He jumps over to grab Chouji's shoulder. "It's so good to see you, man."

Other than the places where his friend has obviously stabbed himself in an attempt to break a genjutsu, that is.

Chouji blocks out everything he remembers from before his arrival, narrowing his focus to Shikamaru's grin. He is determined not to so much as hint at anything which could wreck that. It's not quite as hard as he expected; Shikamaru is radiating enough happiness that it's contagious.

"Sorry I'm so late getting here," he says quietly, a soft smile on his face. "I'd've tried to come sooner if I knew you and Ino were waiting."

"It's better that you weren't, seriously. It's been a while, but we haven't been apart as long as you think."

He just doesn't remember it.

Shikamaru gives Chouji's shoulder another pat before releasing it. There's a bag on his back he brought with him, and slinging that off his shoulders he opens it up to take out a large shirt.

Frowning, Chouji gently calls him out on that. "I still don't know how long I think, because you wouldn't tell me."

His eyes widen when his teammate hands him a shirt. "Shikamaru, you kept a spare shirt around just in case I showed up?" Chouji isn't surprised by the fact that Shikamaru thought to bring one, he just knows that no shirt of his friend's would fit him. He manages a small laugh. "Thanks."

After a pause, he grins sheepishly and asks, "I don't suppose you brought any food in that bag, did you?" Chouji burned an awful lot of calories prior to coming, and even the weight gain imposed by the kyuubi's chakra didn't entirely make up for how hungry he is.

"I picked it up at one of the stores," he says, nodding at the shirt. There are clothes galore there, and if he hadn't been more rushed he might've sat down to look for the clothes Chouji would have came with, to save them both time. It might work out, he imagines. Chouji will need a tour of the place if he's going to stick around in it.

Slyly bypassing the original question - just for now, just until things like clothes and cuts are taken care of - he pulls a bag of chips out from the pack next. "These too."

Chouji knows exactly what Shikamaru is doing when he fails once again to answer the question, but he lets it slide for a minute, especially once he catches sight of what else Shikamaru brought.

"You're the best!" Chouji tears open the bag eagerly, eating a couple of chips immediately. He holds out the open bag to Shikamaru, in case he wants a few chips, before downing the entirety of its contents. "It was a really long day at home. I didn't use the pills, so I'm alright, but I converted a lot to chakra."

The bandages are out of the bag next. There's no need for a full blown first aid kit here when Ino can heal those cuts up as soon as she gets her hands on their mutual close friend, but they may as well not make it harder on her.

What Chouji says doesn't click at first, for those reasons. He was already trying to nudge him along to a place where they could sit so they could take care of that when it settles in. Shikamaru stops in his tracks and turns to regard his friend.

"Oi, you're..." There's no need to resort to the f-word here. "You're from after the war?"

The last time Chouji was around, for that couple of months, he remembers his return in that flak jacket. He was thin, and that scared him, but Chouji had assured him it was all right that time too. Shikamaru had expected if he saw him again, he'd be like that.

Chouji looks a little guilty for bringing up events back home. He reminds himself again of exactly what he has given himself permission to tell his teammates. Ino already asked, and Chouji hated deceiving her about something so important.

"During. I lost weight, but someone used a weird technique and I gained it back in the middle of the battlefield." He shrugs, raising his hands palms up. "That was unexpected."

And because he knows Shikamaru is herding him along, Chouji obliges by sitting on a rock and holding out his injured hand. To lighten the subject, he adds, "The technique didn't make me less hungry, though."

Shikamaru sits opposite of him, wrapping the cut with bandages. Chouji is being purposefully unforthcoming, he thinks. It's a little odd of him... There's not a lot the two of them have ever kept secret from each other.

Where that could have inspired more reason to question it, it has the opposite effect on Shikamaru. This is Chouji, after all. If there's a reason he's not elaborating to him of all people, it's going to be a sound one.

"You can eat more when we get back to the village. Ino can take care of this better, too, when we get there." He ties off the bandage, once he's satisfied with the wrap. "Until then... I can answer your questions about this place on our way back."

Chouji appreciates the lack of questions. Shikamaru never pushes him, and Chouji doubts he would manage to keep anything secret if he ever did. Everything is still so fresh that Chouji doesn't know how to separate out the one most important fact from the events surrounding it. All of it is tinged with grief on his friends' behalf, and on his own for two of the men he's looked up to his entire life. The confusion upon arriving was a welcome distraction, but there's enough time to think now and it isn't helping.

"Let me see the bandages. I'll take care of my leg." As he does, wrapping them around his thigh, he asks, "When are you from, back home? How much have you heard about the war so far?" He doesn't want to keep Shikamaru completely in the dark, he just isn't sure how to say what eventually needs to be said. Besides, if Shikamaru has been here for years, he deserves at least a little time to be happy over a reunion first.

Once both of his self-inflicted injuries have been taken care of, Chouji stands up and takes one or two steps in the direction from which Shikamaru came. He can understand the desire to put off answering difficult questions all too well, but he is ready for an answer to at least one. Chouji feels bad pushing Shikamaru on this when his friend has given him the space he needs. As far as Chouji is concerned, though, the sooner the question is answered, the sooner it isn't sitting there between them anymore. "Sakura said years, Shikamaru. How many?"

Chouji's immediate questions are going to be about his team rather than the situation, and this shouldn't surprise Shikamaru a bit.

Shikamaru opens his mouth to answer the first question; closes it when Chouji goes on. Opens it again to answer the second, but it's one right after the other.

Finally he raises a hand, palm out, stop implication.

"One at a time. Okay?"

He nods agreement. "Sorry. There are too many." With a rueful grimace, he admits, "I'm not very happy about it either, but I suppose at least I don't have to answer them."

Chouji chooses one question, a starting point, even if he wishes he could catch up all at once. "What's the last thing you remember from home?"

Shikamaru's not without sympathy. If he were fresh to Luceti again... but with all of his friends from home this time, not just Naruto, claiming to have not seen him for so long? He'd be lost and upset; analyzing and coming to grips with it as easy as catching a fish bare-handed.

He thinks of how he would feel... and then multiplies it by twofold. That, he thinks, is probably how Chouji feels.

Shikamaru gives his friend a slight nod, pardoning, and promises not to keep him in the dark like that any longer than he has to.

"I'm farther back than some of you," he says in opening, zipping his bag closed to give his hands something to do. "Not by a lot, but enough. The Fifth had just recovered from her coma, and I was attending a war meeting alongside my old man."

He nods. It could be worse, he supposes. At least Shikamaru was involved in planning for the war; he isn't too far behind.

"And the war? How much have you heard?" The unspoken question here is, 'How much do you want to hear?' Shikamaru knows him well enough to understand it without Chouji having to ask. If a number of his friends are from further back, Chouji assumes that some of them will have questions while others won't want to hear anything about the future.

Chouji prides himself on being able to predict his teammates, but he has never had to think about what they'd want if time travel figured into things. Ino is easy; she wants answers and stories. Ino hates being left in the dark. She's already asking questions. Shikamaru, though, who analyzes everything in a process that seems as involuntary as breathing, may or may not want the same. He'll be running through scenarios soon enough if he's sent home. Chouji doesn't think it will necessarily help Shikamaru to start doing so before he can do anything about them.

Edited (html fail) 2013-03-22 21:03 (UTC)

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