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]

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?]

[endgames]

You're answering your own point.

[screw_fate]

Am I?

[Because it all looks like a massive dilemma to him. The lack of control over even the most basic freedom -- the freedom of the mind.]

[endgames]

You're worried that the essence of who you are could be stolen away, nothing of you that make you you left.

[It's an honest concern, and Shikamaru doesn't fault him for it. But he's forgetting one thing, and it's enough to make him speak with more conviction than he normally would.]

But if you changed, do you honestly think the rest of us wouldn't be able to tell the difference? Worse yet, that we'd accept it?

[screw_fate]

[That's a good point; he hasn't been factoring the others around him into his thoughts. Too accustomed to facing his curtailment alone, the Hyuuga clan's studied secrecy above all.

But still...]

Accept it? What would you be able to do about it? Assuming none of the rest of you were affected, of course.

[When Tenten's personality was so radically changed, he hadn't been able to do a thing for her; she'd had no idea it wasn't her normal self.]

[endgames]

["What would you be able to do about it."

He stares down at the table for a bit, and breathes out.]

Most experiments of that nature resolve themselves before we have to. But assuming it didn't? Then it simply becomes a matter of reversing it, no matter what.

[He looks back up, suddenly very sure of himself.] For everything out of our control, and every radical thing they do, all it means is nothing is impossible either. This place is a pot of a thousand different worlds, times a thousand different minds and solutions.

[screw_fate]

[Resolve themselves, yes. But until they do, they're all just stuck with whatever changes are forced on them. This doesn't ease things all that much.

The point about the different powers and talents of the people gathered here, though, is something of a reassurance.]

... I suppose that's so. [His agreement is slow, but genuine.] There are things possible here that are not at home.

[endgames]

I've seen it firsthand. [With a bit of a grin.] And the more people who know you, the more they'll put those talents to use, and lend you a hand when you need it.

[screw_fate]

[Coming from Mr. Popularity over there...]

I suppose that's so. You seem to have done well with making friends...

[endgames]

Actually, I only came to the conclusion recently that that was what I wanted after all.

[screw_fate]

Oh?

[Somehow, despite that, Shikamaru seems to have collected a lot of people interested in his well-being.]