025 -- [Action || Voice]

[endgames]

[When Shikamaru heads down to Asuma's apartment Monday morning, he finds it empty of everything but Kurenai's things and a silver lighter standing on the table. It's wrong, but he doesn't give in to the false hope.

Of course it would stay. Even though Shikamaru gave it back to him, the lighter stopped being Asuma's the moment he picked it off his dying body.

Kurenai must've stepped out before it happened. She's a ninja, and not so senseless to have left the door wide open and run off in her grief. And so he waits for her, and tries to find his words.

After he leaves Kurenai, he has to tell Ino. Team 8 he'll find in person too - he has a request for them on top of this. It's been too long since they've heard a stir from their enemies.]

[It's well past midnight before an announcement comes, after he's made this post and spent a few hours going over the discussions there. When people are either busy with the information he gave them, or asleep.

He smokes a cigarette on his way back to his apartment in the night air, putting it out before he steps into the building, his posture falsely relaxed until he steps into his own room.]

Sarutobi Asuma is gone. [There's a pause and- no, he doesn't think it was mentioned.] Also, Haruno Sakura returned to her world a few weeks ago, for anyone who knew her.

Funnily enough, I haven't seen that masked Akatsuki guy in a while either...

[Too many people to filter that too. It's vague enough, but anyone who needs to know should get what he means. It would have been better news if he'd known before.

He'll answer journal comments in the morning.]

Comments

[endgames]

Hoo, lucky timing.

[And sure, sounds like a good move. He goes past to find a seat. Just them, huh? ...he'll grab a table for four anyways. If no one else is coming, he can use one of the chairs as a footstool.]

[screw_fate]

Indeed.

[Table for four works fine for him; it's less intimate in appearance, an subtle invitation for others to join, if any of their friends happen to see them.]

So. Things seem to have... settled a little, after all that.

[His first real experience with the insanity of Luceti. It's unnerving.]

[endgames]

Yeah. It's not usually so intense. [He picks up a menu, and puts up his feet.] You managed throughout it all right?

[screw_fate]

[Neji takes his own menu, studying it with seeming attention, but his mind is still on the conversation more than anything.]

I managed, yes. Is it too much to hope that those events were rather unusual for Luceti?

[Because as much as the transformations he endured previously were irritating, they were much less catastrophic as a whole.]

[endgames]

I won't say they're not frequent. But it was a surprising turn for everyone involved.

[That should tell Neji something.]

[screw_fate]

I see.

[Neji mulls over that quietly for a moment, his gaze tracking across the menu somewhat aimlessly.]

It seems hard to find anything... normal here. But humans are supremely adaptable.

[He can't decide if he's hoping he'll get accustomed to it, or if he's a little afraid of getting jaded toward all the strangeness -- which would mean Luceti was changing him.]

[endgames]

If you want normal, you're looking at the wrong menu. The food here is anything but, but at least it's in a good way.

[Not ditching your topic, just conversation. He'll bring it back to it.]

[screw_fate]

[Cute. But the witticism actually draws a small, crooked smile out of Neji, and a snort of amusement. Not at all what he meant, but he's willing to let Shikamaru get away with it for the moment.]

I've eaten my sensei's cooking for years. I'm sure I'll manage.

[The words are dry, hinting at old exasperation, but at the same time, a touch of homesickness. He hopes Gai and Lee will stay right where they are, and safe.]

[endgames]

Trust me. [Pointing a finger.] Everything on the menu's awesome.

[That said, he knows what he wants and puts down his menu.]

But yeah. Living here... it's just a matter of biding your time, as sanely as possible.

[screw_fate]

Simple survival.

[Not exactly what he wants to think about. But he wants to get more adapted to this place -- maybe next time, he can do more than a little S&R]

You seem to have adapted well.

[endgames]

I don't know about that. [Flatly, just a little. His tone is normal again in a second.] This isn't a place I want to adapt to. Only just enough to tide things over until we all get back to our world.

[You know, and leave behind a bunch of people he's come to care about.]

[screw_fate]

[Yeah, there's that part. A part of Neji hopes he doesn't build any strong bonds here, for just that reason -- but he also knows what being so adrift can do to a person.]

Is adaptivity truly something we can control, though? To become accustomed to the rhythms of a place, to know what to expect of it, to seek out what comfort we can find... is that a process we can consciously resist, or a simple part of our natures?

[Okay, even he can tell that sounded a little pretentious. It's a question he's been brooding on for a while.]

[endgames]

Now you sound more like yourself. [Which means Shikamaru knows they're getting to the real meat of Neji's problem.

But to answer it...]

When you've been here as long as me? You probably can't resist it, no. It's too hard to turn a blind eye.

But I don't think that's a bad thing.

[screw_fate]

[That first comment just earns Shikamaru a snort. He doesn't sound like that all the time!

But to get to the more important part...]

From what you and Tenten have told me... upon returning home, we won't remember any of this. So I wonder, is there a value in trying to hold firm against that, to remain who we were. If changes will only last so long as we are here... then a part of me asks, why not accept the changes?

[Because he's never gone along with being pushed into a mold all that easily, for starters.]

[endgames]

Because that's not who we are? This place will try to make you forget your home and who you are, from time to time.

Accept all the changes, and you won't be you anymore, Neji. You're too proud for that.

[screw_fate]

[Proud, yes -- Neji knows better than to ever try and claim he isn't. But he's also a Hyuuga, and that means he's got plenty of experience with being molded and forced into acceptance. If anything, it's even more of a trap here. What the Hyuuga can do to him if he gets too rebellious... and then what the Malnosso can do.

That's a very broody look you just prompted, Shikamaru.]

It's best to save resistance for where it will do the most good. That much, I managed to learn in the last few years. The question is -- here, where will it do good?

[endgames]

[Too vague.]

You're generalizing. What specific thing is bothering you?

[screw_fate]

I thought that was rather straightforward, personally.

[But if Shikamaru calls it vague, then fine, he'll elaborate.]

Resisting everything -- every pressure -- simply for the sake of not giving in is exhausting and unproductive. Even if it's only resisting for the sake of retaining some speck of individuality and self-determination, it's better to focus resistance where a little effort will give the greatest sense of relief.

Here, though -- it's hard to find anything that will give a sense of relief, of control over our fates.

[endgames]

[He calls it vague, because in a way it is. What Neji's talking about could apply to anything. Experiments, drafts, the way people leave. Too broad.

It starts to make more sense though, when he breaks it down. More so when he talks about fate.

...ah. He tilts his head.]

It's hard to see beyond the cage, is what you mean.

[screw_fate]

[Yes, that is the sound of Neji's view on life starting to sliiiiide backward out of the enlightenment Naruto punched into him.]

Essentially, yes. There's no way that I can see to reach for even the illusion of freedom, much less the reality of any sort of self-determination.

[endgames]

[He balances a chin in his fist, and frowns at Neji from across the table.]

So if you were to walk back to your apartment, and find Tenten bleeding out on the ground... would you lack the motivation not to see her die?

Stick with Plan A. Naruto punches are always the right answer, yes they are.

[screw_fate]

What? No! Of course that isn't what I meant, Shikamaru!

[And that's a lot of bristles right there. But it's also a good point.]

[screw_fate]

[And after a moment, he pulls himself out of the bristling, acknowledging to himself the point that Shikamaru was making.]

In the small sense, we have apparently free choices here. But our freedom stops where the space does, and we don't have an inch further to move.

[endgames]

[He could point out that Luceti is actually a huge enclosure, not all that different from the size of Konoha (it's canonly the size of Rhode Island), but he doesn't dare compare it to home. He's not fond of the perversion.]

In the "small sense", I can think of free choices that add up to amount to a lot. Leaving isn't one of them yet [because he hasn't done enough to figure it out] but it's about the only thing.

[And his tone turns thoughtful.] That sucks, but you can't render everything else you can do as worthless because of it.

[How does he keep this situation from being overshadowed by Neji's past experiences?

At least he got the reaction he'd wanted out of him earlier - that strong refusal.]

[screw_fate]

[It's not so much the physical size of the village that gets to him -- it could be the size of the entire continent and it wouldn't make much of a difference.]

A lot of free choices -- when we're permitted to have them. But when our personalities, our thoughts, our spirits can be manipulated... at any moment, the very basics that make up the people we are can be altered or taken away.

That's captivity worse than the smallest cell.

[Even with a seal on his forehead, his thoughts are his own. Here... who knows when they'll be taken away?]