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

[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.]

[endgames]

I've been here almost two years, waiting to go back. You can't go that long without getting involved or making connections. [At least when you don't always have the option with working with people you know.] It's only in the last six months that I started counting certain people as friends.

[Neji should get the reason without him having to explain it - it's already come up in this talk. Why make bonds when Luceti could sever them in an instant.]

And it was only last night I think, that I realized that more than that, I need those people too. As long as both them and I are here, at least.

[screw_fate]

[Bonds are hard. Neji gets that. They make you vulnerable, make it much easier for you to be hurt.

Emotionally, it's much easier to remain alone. But then that comes with problems of its own.]

It's hard to need others. What you need... can be denied you.

[endgames]

Better to take control and deny them yourself, right? It's not like I don't get that logic.

[screw_fate]

That's a blunt way of saying it.

[But Neji can't deny it's accurate.]

[endgames]

But it's what you were thinking.

[screw_fate]

More or less.

[Neji shrugs, starting to feel uneasy with the topic. He'd intended this to be some time for Shikamaru to relax, not to play therapist for his own personal angst.]

Though given what you've said, I'll take it under advisement that it isn't a particularly effective strategy.

[endgames]

Heh. If it's my advice you want, Neji. Talk to Naruto.