16autumnroad | [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 grins back at Korra. "I have teammates here too. That makes everything a little better, I think." Pausing for a moment first, Chouji adds, "Not that I want Shikamaru or Ino stuck here, but I wouldn't have liked arriving without them."

Naga has been friendly enough since that Chouji reaches out to pet her on the head as he assures Korra, "I'll look forward to meeting Ikki, then." She must be friendly if Korra's sure that he'll meet Ikki soon.

She blinked, recognizing at least one of those names. “Wait - Shikamaru is one of your teammates?” She had to keep herself from adding in something along the lines of ‘that obnoxious guy’.

"And my best friend," Chouji informs her firmly.

That look on her Korra's face makes it abundantly clear that she isn't fond of Shikamaru. "I take it he didn't make a good impression, then?" That, he can believe. Shikamaru's attitude occasionally infuriates people. Chouji knows his teammate wouldn't have done anything to actually harm Korra.

“....Oh.” Well. She’ll try to not to rag on the guy - he wasn’t so bad in the end, just a little annoying. She couldn’t help but wonder why Aang was such good friends with him, though. “Let’s just say he wasn’t the most helpful when I first arrived.”

Chouji takes note of Korra's restraint, and his smile of thanks makes that clear.

"If you've given the same speech over and over again for two and a half years, repeating yourself must get frustrating." Shikamaru was certainly more helpful to Chouji, but then, best friends are automatically 'worth the trouble.' "I get the impression that everyone from our world uses him as a walking information source when they arrive. A few people told me I should just ask Shikamaru."

The sheepish grin says it all. Chouji is well aware of Shikamaru's faults, but they pale in comparison to the respect he has for his friend.

“He’s kind of a local authority, huh?” She wondered if he had been there as long as Sokka - though, to be fair, Sokka hadn’t been particularly helpful at first either.

“He said we teamed up last time I was here. I don’t remember anything from that time, though.” But, at the very least, it made her reconsider Shikamaru instead of dismissing him as a pest. That was something.

"He's been here longer than anyone else from our world, I think, so I suppose that's true. Even back home, though, I would ask Shikamaru what to do before I'd ask anybody else." In spite of the best friend connection, this was an objective evaluation. Shikamaru was their strategist. Not only did Chouji trust him more than anyone, Shikamaru was also the smartest, the most likely to get everyone through a given situation safely.

"Ah, you too? I don't remember being here before either, but they told me I was." Chouji's frown should tell Korra just how much he disliked that idea. He was still getting used to it.

She didn't like it either. From the sound of it, she hadn't been here too long, but she didn't like the idea of forgetting people. Of forgetting her own life.

"Yeah. Kind of sucks, doesn't it? Everyone knows you way better than you know them."

"I haven't run into it yet." Chouji thought for a minute about it and said, "I think I'm more upset about missing so much of my friends' lives, because they've been here a long time. That, and the fact that somebody may be hurt if I don't remember them."

Korra was being pretty open with him, so he'd give her the same. Chouji knew he'd be hurt if someone forgot about him, and the thought of doing that to someone else made him uncomfortable.

She frowned, thinking about the people who had recognized her on the journal and in the village. She just...couldn't remember them at all. Was that even her before? How could she just forget?

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Then she grinned sheepishly. "But at least if we knew each other before, neither of us has to feel bad, right?"

Chouji laughs at that. "I guess you're right! We can just go ahead and start over without hesitation." Chouji has no idea whether he and Korra have forgotten each other, and he decides it doesn't matter much. If they have, it's mutual.

"This place is so strange." He didn't even mean to say the words out loud.

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

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