The Barbecue Trail
When Chouji Akimichi regained consciousness, the first thing he noticed was that he had a splitting headache.
The second thing he noticed was the ropes digging into his body. They were looped around his hands, which had been yanked behind his back, around his ankles and knees, around his arms and over his chest, pinning his arms to his sides. He had been placed in a sitting position, with his legs out in front of him. As he tried to move his bound hands, he was almost jerked back, like a dog straining at its leash. The end of the rope had been looped around a pipe, which was also digging into the small of his back, and some kind of heavy cloth – not his scarf or his forehead protector, he noted, judging by the mothy smell – had been tied tightly over his mouth.
His stomach growled. He wondered where his father was. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he could make out some dim shapes moving.
Panic overtook him. He tried to cry out, wondering if his father was there too, but the gag turned his speech into muffled animal grunts.
A voice came out of the darkness.
"Shut it."
He doubled over in agony as a booted foot kicked him in the stomach, and everything went black.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Ino was lounging against the wall of Yamanaka Florists when Shikamaru came charging up to her. He didn't have to tell her there was something wrong; she could always tell something was out of the ordinary when Shikamaru wasn't ambling along with his hands in his pockets. "Shikamaru?" she asked. "What's going on?"
"You've got to come down to the hospital," Shikamaru gasped. "Sensei's down there. He told me to come and get you."
Ino was worried. There was something, or rather someone, who was missing from the picture.
"Where's Chouji?"
"I'll explain later," said Shikamaru. "Now come on." And he and Ino raced off to Konoha Hospital.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Flanked by his students, Asuma grimly surveyed Chouza Akimichi's battered body. His chest and left arm were swathed in bandages, his right arm had a drip coming out of it, and almost every inch of revealed skin was covered in cuts and bruises. Chouza's trademark headband had been replaced by bandages. One of his eyes was swollen shut.
For Asuma, seeing such a big man so badly damaged was equivalent to watching a seemingly impenetrable fortress being reduced to rubble. Chouza might have been slow, but he was a very capable fighter. Asuma remembered how Chouza had been among those called to chase away the Kyuubi when it had been unleashed upon the village, while he himself was only a teenager. Of all the clan heads, he was always one of the first to get in there and fight, unafraid to dirty his hands with enemy blood.
"Who did this to you?" he asked.
"Ambush," Chouza said faintly. "Chouji and me were out in the forest training. They came at us at once. I...don't think they were Akatsuki or anything. I didn't stand a chance. They were...too fast...I think one of them got me from behind." He tried to smile. "They did a number on me. If I was any thinner I'd probably be dead. But when I woke up," and here his eyes began to fill with tears, "they'd taken Chouji."
Shikamaru's eyes were filled with sorrow. Ino clenched her fists and hissed, "Bastards. Fucking bastards."
"Could have been a random group of bandits, hoping to get something out of us," mused Asuma. "But that's not important right now. The important thing is we go after Chouji. Any idea where they might have taken him? Did they leave any traces?"
Chouza shook his head. "No. Not at all. Tsume Inuzuka was here earlier. She's probably waiting for you downstairs. I gave her my headband in case it might help, but I've got nothing of Chouji's."
"Tsume was here, eh?" mused Asuma, stroking his beard. "She's offering to help us find Chouji, is she? That's handy, we could do with someone with a good sense of smell."
"We'd better go," said Shikamaru.
"Please," said Chouza in a hoarse whisper. "Please bring my son home."
You bet we will, thought Ino. Even if it's a body bag, Gods forbid. We will. And we'll get the bastards who did this to Chouji.
When the three shinobi left the hospital, the Inuzuka clan head and Kuromaru, her one-eyed wolf-dog, were waiting for them. Chouza's bloodied headband was tied around Tsume's head.
"So, Asuma," said Tsume nonchalantly, leaning against the wall of the hospital, "I heard Chouza's kid's gone missing. I saw him earlier, I thought you might need some assistance. I've got his headband and that's a start, but have you got anything of Chouji's that Kuromaru and I can smell?"
"Can't help you there, sorry," said Asuma with a shrug. Ino's brow furrowed as an idea came to her. She sprinted towards a nearby corner shop.
"Ino!" she heard Asuma shout after her. "What are you doing?"
"Got to get something," Ino called back over her shoulder. Asuma was about to go after her when Shikamaru laid a hand on his shoulder and said, "Sensei, she knows what she's doing, trust me."
In seconds, Ino dashed out of the corner shop, her kit bag looking bigger than before, and said, "Sorry about that, Asuma-sensei." She opened her kit bag and took out a packet of barbecue-flavoured crisps, and handed them to Tsume, saying, "He always eats these. Maybe this will help?"
"Hmmmm," said Tsume, frowning. "An article of clothing would be better, but I guess we don't have enough time to go and get one." She tore open the bag, buried her nose in it and inhaled deeply, before holding it under Kuromaru's nose for him to sniff.
"Don't chuck them or anything," said Ino. She took the crisps back and shoved them back into her kit bag. "I'll get them out again if you need them, yeah?"
"I'll start sniffing for Chouji once we get out of the gate," said Tsume. "Let's go."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Tsume and Kuromaru bounded through the trees, Shikamaru behind them, Ino and Asuma bringing up the rear. Since they had left Konoha, Asuma had not reached for his cigarette packet once. Ino should have been relieved – she hated Asuma's bloody fags, they always made her cough and they stank – but she knew it was a bad sign when her sensei didn't smoke. He might have complained about Chouji's eating habits and chastised him for not training hard enough (although Chouza had been working him like a dog recently), but he was still Chouji's sensei and he still had a responsibility to protect him, and moreover, he was clearly worried that these enemies, whoever they were, had taken Chouza down. OK, so Asuma had katon jutsu and Chouza didn't, but he was big and strong, a capable staff fighter, specialising in hand-to-hand combat, able to make his body twice the size of a house if he had to. Ino wondered how they could have taken such a man down. But, she consoled herself, we've got Tsume and her dog, and Asuma, and Shikamaru, and me. And me.
Tiny branches brushed Ino's face. Leaping from tree to tree came naturally to her. She'd always been a fast runner and had good chakra control, and that hellish training she'd started with Tsunade was beginning to pay off. The bitch worked her and Sakura to the bone, throwing all manner of explosives and weapons at them and smashing the very ground they stood on to pieces, forcing them to hone their evasion skills, for any good medic-nin must be able to dodge in order to keep themselves safe to save the lives of others.
Save the lives of others.
She wondered if Chouji was alive, and pushed the thought to the back of her mind. I should prepare myself for the worst...but I can't give up hope. Chouji might be a big softie, but he can be tenacious as hell when he wants to be.
No-one spoke. Tsume and Kuromaru were concentrating on picking up the Akimichis' scents, and Shikamaru was probably worried sick, even if he didn't show it.
More light was poking through the trees ahead, and they opened out into a clearing surrounded by woods. They skirted around the clearing and followed Tsume as she veered off to the right, until she stopped abruptly and said, "Let's go back to the clearing. I've got something I need to check."
The shinobi went back on themselves and dropped to the ground, Asuma with his trench knives poised, Kuromaru with his nose to the ground and Tsume with hers to the air. Tsume frowned. Then she spoke.
"This was where they must have been picked up."
Out of the corner of his eye, Shikamaru noticed something brown and shiny caught under a bush, fluttering in the wind like a drowning man. He crouched down, made the seal of the Rat and the Bird, and said, "Kage Nui no Jutsu." The shadows made by overhanging branches attached themselves to the bush and gave it an upwards tug, and the object could now clearly be seen to be dangling from a twig. No explosive tags or anything of the kind were attached to it. Shikamaru released the jutsu and picked the object up, and showed it to the others.
"A crisp packet, eh?" said Asuma. "So. That nails it."
"The further I move out from here, the fainter Chouza's scent gets," Tsume explained, "but I can still smell Chouji's."
"I don't suppose he's left any clues?"
"Chouji's not the brightest of people," Ino said, feeling a pang of guilt, although what she said was true. "I don't think he'd think of that, would he?"
Shikamaru shook his head. "That's where you're wrong. He'd leave some kind of mark if he could. Dad said Chouza did that once when he'd been captured, he managed to carve the Akimichi crest into a tree. Standard clan procedure, and it's common sense, and Chouji's not as thick as people think he is. He'd know to do that. Maybe he dropped it on purpose...or maybe he wasn't even conscious. Chouza was pretty badly beaten, wasn't he? They could have knocked Chouji out too and carried him off."
Ino felt sick. She imagined Chouji being beaten over the head with a blunt object, his body caving in and collapsing to the ground, and then being picked up and carried to gods know where, manhandled like a sack of vegetables. Like a thing, not a person.
"Where's the trail lead?" asked Asuma.
"Two o'clock direction, by my nose," said Kuromaru. Ino stared. She had forgotten Tsume's wolf-dog could speak.
"Well, then," said Tsume briskly. "Onward."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
No matter how hard he strained to listen, Chouji could only catch a few words here and there, and nothing he overheard gave him enough indication as to why he had been kidnapped. Was it his father's money? The Akimichi weren't as rich as the Hyuuga, the Uchiha or the Aburame, but they were still nobility. Was it some kind of plot against Konoha? Were they using him as bait to get Asuma or Shikamaru? And why him?
He squirmed and twisted this way and that, but the group hadn't taken any chances. The ropes bit into his flesh. He tried moving his hands so that his wrists were next to each other rather than crossed, but to no avail. The rope seemed to have been wrapped several times round each wrist. Neither could he shrug off the ropes around his arms and chest.
They had all learned how to escape from being tied up in the Academy. It was one of those things you had to learn.
He also realised he was low on chakra, and remembered that he wasn't carrying his soldier pills. Even if he had, how would he have been able to get to them? Not to mention that he couldn't get the fucking gag off either. He tried rubbing his neck against the wall, but it was no use. The gag remained in place. Frustrated, he swore into it.
He couldn't even move his hands to reach his kunai. No wonder they'd tied him to a pipe. They'd evidently thought this through.
How did I let myself get caught? Chouji thought. He cast his mind back to when he and Chouza had been training. They'd all come at once. Chouza had been feeling under the weather recently, probably because he'd caught the bug that had been going around, but Chouza was a stubborn old git and trained even when he wasn't feeling particularly well. Tsunade had bollocked him once when he'd tried to leave the hospital while still not well enough to be discharged.
Both Akimichi had tried to fight back, and Chouji had managed to hit one of them, but another one had somehow got behind him and bashed him over the head, hard enough for him to lose consciousness, and next thing he knew, he'd woken up and found himself with a splitting headache and a cut on his cheek, gagged and tied to a pipe with no idea of what had happened in between.
He heard something that sounded like 'fat bastard', and strained at his bonds in a rage. It was no use. His body jerked back against the wall and his head began to throb again.
How am I going to get out of here?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The forest was growing light again, and the greenery thinned out until it ended abruptly at a large patch of waste ground. Each shinobi instinctively ducked behind a tree. Straight in front of them was a building; it appeared to be some kind of hut, the kind used for storage, about the length of their old Academy classroom, beige in colour, with a flat roof and a small dirty window high up on the wall next to a drainpipe. Beyond the hut, she could just make out an adjacent building nearby of a similar nature. Lowered voices were coming from it.
"I recognise this area," said Asuma. "The Fire Temple's near here. The monks used to store weapons here, if I recall correctly." He grimaced. "Pretty good place to hide a prisoner, since practically no-one comes out here anymore."
"Chouji's in there," Ino blurted out. "I bet you anything he is."
"Well," said Tsume dubiously, "I can smell him, but how do we know for sure he's not been moved on? They might have gone somewhere else."
Apropos of nothing, Shikamaru shoved his hands in his pockets and began to whistle a tune that Ino dimly recognised. Was it some kind of folk song or something? They liked their folk music, the Nara. Shikamaru had a decent enough singing voice himself, as did Chouji. In fact, she could have sworn she'd heard Chouji singing the same melody once...
"Be quiet," Asuma hissed, around the time when Ino realised what Shikamaru was whistling. "You'll blow our cover."
"Sensei," said Ino, remembering in the nick of time to keep her voice down, "he's trying to help us."
The melody grew louder, and then Shikamaru stopped whistling, and waited.
Something began to bang on the window of the hut.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Chouji adjusted himself as best he could, his ear pressed against the wall, and could just make out the faint sound of someone whistling the introduction to the Akimichi clan's battle song.
We may not have Mangekyo Sharingan
Or see through walls with the Byakugan
Our bodies will never become living hives
But we will defend Konoha with our lives...
He heard it again, followed by the first verse. He knew it was definitely the Akimichi clan's battle song. He'd sung it enough times at family parties, including all the particularly rude and gory bits about ripping throats out and shitting down the hole and suchlike.
He couldn't believe it. Someone from Konoha was outside. It couldn't be the kidnappers – they sounded like outsiders, and no-one outside Konoha, except maybe the Jounin Commander of Sunagakure – an old acquaintance of his father's – would know the song.
Chouji was not a quick thinker by nature. He was one of nature's doers, and had always relied on Shikamaru and Ino to do the thinking. He clasped his hands together, and with great difficulty, managed to form the seal of the Ram. His wrists were killing him, so he would leave the hands for now. When he looked back, he wondered why he hadn't thought of expanding his hands first.
"Mmmm mmm Bkuh nh Jutshuh!" Chouji yelled, and his legs stretched out in front of him. He slid forward on his arse as best he could, and swung his legs up towards the window.
Missed.
He slid further until he could feel the pipe below his shoulderblades. The ropes binding his wrists were killing him, but he did his best to ignore the pain, raised his legs, and with all his might, kicked at the window. To his relief, it connected.
Chouji vaguely remembered the Wabun code they'd been taught in the Academy. He couldn't remember much, but he did still recall the code for his name. He banged on the window with his feet, long taps, short taps, spelling out his name. As he was about to spell 'HELP', he kicked rather too enthusiastically, and his boot went through the window.
Was that Ino of all people he heard outside?
The door burst open, and two men rushed in. One of them shouted, "What the fuck are you playing at?"
Panic gripped Chouji. In desperation, he swung his legs and kicked one of the men in the head, knocking him to the ground. More of them poured in, and two of them managed to grab hold of his flailing legs.
"You little shit," yelled the man he had kicked. "You'll die for this."
"Wait, wait," said one of the two women in the group. "Let's not kill it just yet. It's being difficult. Let's teach it to behave itself."
Chouji thrashed around like a trapped fish, but the man and woman holding his legs tightened their grip, and he realised with shock what was going to happen, and doubled over again as yet another boot smashed into his stomach. Another kicked him in the side, again and again, and as white hot pain ripped through him, he realised they had broken a rib. He cried out in pain, but this only seemed to encourage them. One of them was carrying some kind of small knife which seared across his cheek, tearing it open. A hot trail of blood streamed down his face. His vision blurred as a fist punched him in the head.
They were enjoying this. He could hear them laughing. He clenched his teeth and prayed to Uke-mochi-sama to keep him from crying. That was the least he could do not to give them a reaction.
After what seemed like hours and hours of pain and shocks, they closed the door and left him, a broken, bleeding mass of flesh and bone. A piece of meat.
Blood dripped down onto his t-shirt and shorts. Every time he breathed, he felt as though he was being knifed. Every inch of his body hurt like hell, and the ropes still dug into him, scoring deep lines in his flesh.
Chouji felt another warm trail of liquid down his cheek. A teardrop.
He was crying now, muffled sobs that shook his body. The salt stung the cut on his cheek.
Why are they doing this to me? I was only trying to protect myself.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The shinobi listened in horror and fury as they heard muffled cries of pain coming from the hut. Even though the person making the noises sounded as if they were gagged, Ino, Asuma and Shikamaru's suspicions, upon hearing the banging on the window, were confirmed. It was Chouji.
"He's in there," Ino gasped. "They're hurting him! Sensei! They're hurting him!"
"Ino, shush," said Shikamaru. "They'll hear us if we're not careful."
Asuma was lost in thought. He was looking at the roof of the building. It was flat, and a couple of yards away from the black drainpipe running down the side where they were standing, there was a large chimney. Nothing was coming out of it, but it would make a suitable hiding place, at least. He said as much, and added, "What we'll have to do is get someone up there behind the chimney. They more than likely have someone guarding the building at the front...we'll need to create some sort of diversion, maybe smoke them out. I can do that."
"You'll be wanting us, no doubt," said Tsume. She grinned and her fangs gleamed. "Ino or Shikamaru can go on the roof."
"I'll do it, Asuma-sensei," said Ino.
Asuma looked at her. "You sure?"
"It makes sense," said Shikamaru. "Ino's good at this sort of thing, and if there's a guard down there she'll have a clear trajectory."
"Your aim has been getting better recently," said Asuma. "Well, then. That's settled."
"We need a verbal cue," mused Ino. "Something I can make him fit into a sentence without it sounding too weird. How about 'plums'?"
Shikamaru repressed a snort. Asuma said, "A bit puerile, but fair enough. Now let's get you up there."
"We'll let you know when we're ready, and you take it from there," added Tsume.
With Asuma providing a foothold, Ino placed a kunai between her teeth, shinned up the drainpipe of the hut and heaved herself up onto the roof, trying to make as little noise as possible. Once on the roof, she lay flat on her belly and inched herself towards the chimney. She squatted behind it and tentatively peered over the edge of the building. She could see a man standing on the ground below, his back turned towards her.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
They were outside now, discussing what to do next. Chouji gritted his teeth until his jaw ached and forced himself to stop crying. The blood on his face was beginning to dry.
One of the men who had been kicking him said, "It needs more restraint."
More restraint? Oh gods.
The door of the hut opened, and Chouji steeled himself. Two figures approached him, carrying what appeared to be some heavy cloth, and all the lights went out as it was thrown over him, the ends tucked under his legs and behind his back. He struggled fruitlessly, but it was no use. All his energy had deserted him.
Left alone, Chouji collapsed into the wall and began to cry again, and hated himself for it. No amount of emotional training could help him. He felt pathetic and useless and small and weak and desperate. His body, his greatest weapon, felt as though it was falling to pieces, and only the ropes that bound him and the cloth were holding him together.
Help me, whoever you are. Help me.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Kuromaru and Tsume began to howl.
"Whose dog is that?"
"I didn't bring no dog."
"Shintenshin no Jutsu," muttered Ino. The jutsu hit home, and Ino's body dropped down behind the chimney as her consciousness transferred itself into the guard's mind.
"Man, that fat tub of shit's probably never going to have kids," said Ino through the guard. She felt a little guilty insulting Chouji like that, but he'd thank her for it later. "Not that anyone would want to fuck it anyway. Its plums have probably gone right into its body."
Shikamaru's whole body tensed at the mention of the password.
"Now's our chance," said Asuma. "Katon, Haisekishou!" He took an enormous breath, quickly made the seals of the Snake, the Rat, the Snake again and the Tiger, and blew out a great cloud of ash. He clicked his teeth, and the ash exploded into flame.
"What the fuck was that?"
"Juujin Bunshin!" shouted Tsume, and Kuromaru, now shaped like a second Tsume, leapt on top of her. "Gatsuuga!" Woman and dog-woman barrelled into the side of the hut, just as Shikamaru's explosive-tagged kunai landed on the ground and was ignited by a stray spark from Asuma's inferno.
"I can smell burning..."
"Run!"
Ino returned to her body and slid on her belly along the roof of the hut, watching the chaos begin to unfold. She was going to enjoy this next step.
"Shinranshin no Jutsu!"
She'd been waiting for someone to practise this jutsu on for ages.
"You," Ino's voice projected itself into the man's head. "You are a worthless piece of shit. You're a waste of life. You deserve to die. You kidnapped my team mate. My friend. You hurt him. You hurt my friend. You treated him like an animal, and I'll make you pay, oh, I'll make you fucking pay. Take the knife out of your pocket."
The guard found himself rummaging in his pockets. He brought out a small blade. He struggled against the influence of the invisible forces, but it was no good. He held the blade to his abdomen.
The blade sank into his flesh, once, twice, three times, four times. He roared with pain, but could not stop himself from ripping a large gash. Blood was streaming over his hands. He was frantically stabbing at himself now, the blade going in, out, in, out, tearing through cloth and flesh, blood gushing from the numerous holes that he tore in his own body. He could not stop. No matter how hard he tried to resist, no matter how tense he made his muscles, something was manipulating him like a puppet.
He pulled up his sleeves and scored deep lines across his wrists. The dusty ground was soaked with blood.
I'm enjoying this way too much, Ino thought, and then remembered Chouji's cries of pain, and as she imagined him lying there, becoming nothing more than some gang of thugs' plaything, fists and boots and gods know what else hammering into his body, even the soft thick flesh of his belly not being able to protect him from being winded, while Chouza lay bandaged and helpless and beaten in a hospital bed, her rage began to grow. She felt as though molten lava was circulating in her veins. She was tapping into something darker, some kind of primal instinct. Her father was an interrogator. Maybe it was in the Yamanaka blood. She thought of Chouji and the images grew more vivid. Poor Chouji, poor kind, gentle, affectionate, good-hearted, loyal Chouji, a boy who would never hurt anyone unless he had to, who would grow tearful whenever he saw kids or small creatures in pain, who came to visit her when she had been injured after a mission, and consoled her when she'd been beating herself up for not being as strong as Shikamaru, who had shyly told her she was pretty, who had cheered Shikamaru on in the Chuunin Exams with her, who had teased her for going vegetarian, who had stroked her back when she'd been off her tits that one night and drank too much sake and thrown up, her team mate, her friend.
You do not deserve this, Chouji Akimichi. You do not deserve this. They will suffer a thousand times over what they did to you.
She decided to quote from a particularly nasty vengeance scene from the Matsuzaka Monogatari, a book about a mythical ninja that her father had read to her once when she was a little kid.
"Teareth out thy own throat. Looketh upon thyself, o black dog, looketh upon thyself with shame, and teareth out thy own throat."
She heard a gurgling noise, and watched without pity as the guard clutched at his slashed throat, his bloodied blade lying on the ground.
Ino leapt down from the roof. The guard would never survive what she had made him do to himself, and the others were too busy fending off fire and trench knives and shadows and an angry woman and her dog. She pushed at the door, and it yielded. She wondered if there would be traps, and gripped her kunai tightly, but deep down she knew she had nothing to fear. These bastards were clearly not shinobi.
The room was dark, and even the light coming in from the door only helped a little. Ino felt the blood pounding in her ears. She could see a dark shape propped up against the wall.
"Chouji?"
Her eyes grew accustomed to the dark. Kunai in hand, she inched her way over to where the dark shape was. She saw that it appeared to be covered by some thick dark cloth, and, keeping her breathing as quiet as possible, her kunai at the ready, she yanked the cloth away.
Underneath the cloth sat Chouji, bound and gagged. His head was bowed, and he appeared to be sleeping. Ino felt rage well up within her as she noticed the tear stains and dried blood on his face.
"Chouji?" Ino said gently, taking him by the shoulder and shaking him. "It's me, it's Ino."
Chouji's eyes prised themselves open. Ino noticed his lips moving under the cloth, as he made a noise along the lines of "Uhhh...Nnnnn? Shkmr?"
"Shikamaru's outside," said Ino. "He's with Sensei and Kiba's mum."
Chouji nodded.
The first thing I need to do, Ino thought, is get the gag off. I can worry about untying him later. Kneeling, she made efforts to the knot where the cloth had been tied behind Chouji's head. Eventually, she felt the cloth give, and dropped it on the floor as it fell away from Chouji's mouth. He took a deep breath, desperate to have fresh air in his lungs, and let out a long gasp.
"Ino...I..."
"Don't try to talk," Ino ordered. She unscrewed the top of her water bottle and held it to Chouji's mouth, placing her hand under his chin and tilting his head back ever so slightly, and he sucked and sucked at it like a baby at its mother's teat, little rivulets of water running down his chin. He drank until the bottle was empty, and Ino, noticing Chouji was wearing his scarf, used the end of it to dry his face. She undid her kit bag and emptied it onto the floor. Several packets of crisps fell out. Chouji's eyes widened.
"I brought you a present," said Ino. She grinned. "Your favourite." She tore open a packet.
"Oh, Ino," sighed Chouji. "You are the bestest."
"Open your mouth," said Ino briskly. "I'll untie you later, but right now, you need to eat." Chouji nodded, his mouth hanging open, and Ino placed a crisp in it. As Chouji chewed and swallowed, she continued to feed him, like a mother bird feeding a chick, popping crisps into his mouth until the bag was gone. One bag followed, then another. She could see colour slowly returning to Chouji's face as he inhaled crisps from her hand. There were fragments of fried potato on his chin, and Ino wiped them off again with his scarf and stuffed more and more crisps into Chouji's mouth. Chouji ate and ate, moaning gently with almost orgasmic satisfaction, until all the crisps were gone. His wide mouth curved upwards into a smile. The first one Ino had seen from him since she found him.
"Ahhh," he sighed. "I really needed that."
"It'll have to do for now," said Ino. "Now hold still and I'll cut you free." She sawed at the ropes, taking great care not to accidentally slash Chouji's skin. The poor thing was hurt enough. First his ankles were free, then the ropes around his body were cut, and finally, she sawed through the rope binding his hands, and Chouji was free.
Ino took hold of Chouji's aching wrists and began to massage life into them. She could see angry red marks where they had been digging in. She rubbed gently at the marks as the energy returned to Chouji's body.
"Can you stand?" she asked.
Chouji gingerly placed his hands on the floor and tried to pick himself up, but collapsed. He tried again and again, until eventually, with Ino helping him, he was able to stand. He leaned against the wall of the hut, clutching his chest where his ribs had been broken.
Ino knew for sure that Chouji was getting his energy back when he threw his arms around her, almost knocking the air out of her lungs, and said, "Thank you. Thank you. Ino, you're a legend. Thank you so much."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Shikamaru called, "Ino?"
"What?" Ino shouted.
"You can come out now," Shikamaru bellowed back. "We're done."
With Chouji leaning on her for support, Ino walked out of the hut and into the sunlight, where the air stank of burning meat and ash. Charred and mutilated corpses lay in a row on the ground. Kuromaru was licking blood off Tsume's face, while Shikamaru was hogtying an unconscious surviving member of the group.
"We'll take this one back to Interrogation for questioning," said Tsume. "Maybe Ibiki can get some motive out of him."
"Bunch of amateurs, indeed," commented Kuromaru. "Once we smoked 'em out, they were like a pack of frightened rabbits. Not so big and brave when they're against us."
All faces turned towards Chouji.
"My gods," Shikamaru breathed. "What did they do to you?"
"I'll tell you some other time," said Chouji. "I don't really feel like talking about it right now."
"Well, at least you're in one piece," said Asuma.
"We'll need to get him to Konoha Hospital," Ino said. "He's got a couple of broken ribs. And Chouza will want to see him."
At the mention of his father, Chouji burst into tears.
"Oh, come here, you big softie," said Ino, and threw her arms around Chouji, and the two of them clung tightly to each other as Shikamaru watched sadly. Ino stroked Chouji's back and murmured, "It's OK, Chouji. It's OK. You're safe now. They're not going to get you."
"I'm a fucking shit ninja," Chouji wailed. "I got myself kidnapped. What if they'd killed Dad? What the hell could I have done? I'm shit, I'm fucking shit. I might as well go back to the Academy. I'm fucking useless."
"There'll be none of that, thank you," said Asuma sternly. "What's done is done, Chouji. You are not having your genin status revoked. Learn from this, and become stronger. That's the best thing you can do."
"You're not useless," said Shikamaru, patting him on the back. "Don't beat yourself up."
"You've helped us both enough times," said Ino, smiling. "It's time the tables were turned. Who said it has to be the boys who get to do the rescuing?"
Chouji laughed in spite of himself, and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. "Sorry. It's been a long day."
Kuromaru paced impatiently. Asuma took his cue, lifted the incapacitated prisoner over his shoulder and slung him across the wolf-dog's back.
"Let's go home."