Akimichi Chouji (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
16autumnroad) wrote2013-03-17 08:51 am
16autumnroad) wrote2013-03-17 08:51 am
[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.]
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.]
[Voice]
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.
[Voice]
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.
[Voice]
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.
[Voice --> Action]
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.
[Action]
Chouji beams at his best friend. Regardless of what Shikamaru may tell him now, none of it seems quite so daunting anymore.
[Action]
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.
[Action]
"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."
[Action]
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.
[Action]
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.
[Action]
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."
[Action]
"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."
[Action]
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.
[Action]
"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."
[Action]
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."
[Action]
"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.
[Action]
Finally he raises a hand, palm out, stop implication.
"One at a time. Okay?"
[Action]
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?"
[Action]
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."
[Action]
"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.
[Action]
Blunt; painfully so. It's the most honest he's been on the subject, and outright about his opinion. He doesn't expand on the reasons, but Chouji would be right on the why.
"Aren't you scared?"
"We're going to war. I'm terrified."
It will do him no good to panic about in another world, where his hands are tied.
He speaks around a smile. "I mean... I'm going to go back home someday. We all are. I have to hold out that I'll experience it myself someday."
Even so, it's a very specific question coming from Chouji. Shikamaru analyzes his teammate. He's so happy he's here, but he's fresh out of the war. He has to wonder at the Akimichi's emotional state. His kindness is the trait Shikamaru admires most about him, but knows it softens him. Is he all right? Here the other members making up Team 10 won't have a clue of everything he's been through.
"That said, a few things have leaked through. I know we'll be going up against zombies brought back via the Edo Tensei..." He can't help but smirk then. "And that Naruto found out about the war despite all attempts to keep him from it."
He predicted that would happen.
[Action]
With the mention of Edo Tensei, Chouji makes up his mind. Shikamaru would see the possibility coming, even if confirming it may be hard on him. If he knew nothing and didn't want to know, Chouji would stay silent. He could force himself to do that much. Shikamaru knows enough already that Chouji will give himself permission burden his friend with one more thing.
"You already know the big problems with Edo Tensei. How many... and who." Chouji looks pained. "I froze for too long. I could have gotten us all killed if Ino and my dad hadn't intervened. Ino took over my body, and you controlled hers. My father left his own battle to remind me of my vows." He meets Shikamaru's gaze straight on, admitting, "I kept the two of you waiting at home, too." Never for years, but they were a very long and very important few minutes. He won't let that happen again.
After a brief pause, Chouji asks his teammate, because somehow hearing it from Shikamaru will make it more real than hearing from Sakura or Lee, "Asuma-sensei... he's here? Alive?" Only a fool could miss the connection between this question and what came before it. Chouji asks for his own sake, knowing Shikamaru doesn't need help making deductions.
[Action] 1/2
He'd wondered at it, about Asuma. Had even taken Chouji's behavior to be confirmation that their teacher was among those resurrected, and that they may have had to fight him.
[Action]
It would have been worse on the battlefield; ten times that for Chouji. Shikamaru would think better of him had he not just described what happened. Oh, Chouji. It took that much to motivate you?
He speaks with such conviction about it in hindsight though that Shikamaru knows at some point though, it did finally click for him. Is that where this new confidence came from?
"Y-Yeah." He reacts a second too late to the question, caught up in his thoughts. They're sorted quickly and his posture relaxes. Unflinchingly, now. "Just a week ago, though this is the second time."
[Action]
Chouji doesn't like his own selfishness, but telling his teammate feels like absolution. Shikamaru has always known Chouji's weakest moments, and there's a new entry to be made in that list. Chouji always did his best to follow any weak moment with a strong one, though. "I didn't need the pills after that. My resolve was enough on its own, I guess." After all the people he cared about lent him their strength, it would be unforgivable to fail to find his own.
He nods, a slow smile spreading across his face. "That's good." Before the war, he couldn't imagine seeing Asuma again. Their brief reunion was painful. The prospect of a better one, even here, means too much to put into words.
One question at a time, and it's time to get the question Chouji is dreading most over with. "Shikamaru, how many years have you been here?"
[Action]
There is visible relief about him when it's explained that he achieved that power without the Akimichi Clan's pills. Not much more needs to be said about that, or Asuma, probably. It speaks for itself, so he's not surprised when Chouji moves on to the next subject. He bottles up his thoughts and likewise moves on with it.
"Aa..." He wasn't avoiding this question before, but it's difficult not to expect a certain reaction. "It's been two and a half years, now."
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