AN: Crap. Forgot the Disclaimer. Hopefully this will be the last update to the first two chapters.
I do not own Naruto.
Twelve
Chouji
Chouji is the easiest of them all to get along with. For all of Naruto's blatant charisma, or Hinata's empathy, Shikamaru's keen mind, or Ino's social training, Chouji still stays the best person to spill all your problems to.
He never judges. He never speaks without thinking. He never grimaces or flinches. And he sure as hell never talks about anything he hears. That is why Chouji is actually the one person everyone is closest to, yet he's also one of the more distant.
Chouji has an excellent singing voice. It's something not really known outside of his clan or team (and later the rest of the Twelve).
The first time his team realised it was when he started singing a workman's ditty on one of their weeding D—ranks. He will never forget Shikamaru's surprise, Ino's jealousy or Asuma's bemused expression.
The rest of the Twelve are treated to his voice when a drunk Neji Hyuuga dragged Chouji onto the stage so that he had a partner on karaoke night.
Chouji was, by far, the best cook of the Twelve. But, as an Akimichi, he never ate anything he made himself.
It was one of the basic beliefs of being an Akimichi. Cooking was a labour of love, and love was meant to be shared.
If Asuma was honest with himself, he would admit that Chouji is his favourite student. But Asuma was a jounin. A jounin didn't survive to become a jounin if he didn't lie to himself.
So he doted on the Shikamaru, with his unprecedented potential. Even if his laziness made him simply want to light a fireball under his sleeping ass.
So he tried to inspire Ino, to free her of her various little obsessions. Even if her demeanour was shrill and her inspiration questionable.
But he never had to struggle with Chouji. He knew that sometimes you needed to just stop thinking, or fabricating excuses, or caring what others thought. He knew when it was time to say 'fuck it' and just give it his all. And he was perhaps the only member of their team who actually still had common human decency.
Chouji had the highest kill-count of Team 10 (barring Asuma. He didn't count, for obvious reasons).
What else could you expect from a human steamroller on a team whose other members' speciality was capture and contain?
Chouji was the only one to go to his sensei's funeral, to brave the mass of sympathetic people.
Shikamaru went later, in the night, to visit his sensei for one last time.
Ino never went at all. She was too deep in her sorrow, and the meditation exercises didn't want to work anymore.
It was one of the few things that Chouji never truly forgave them for.
Chouji was, surprisingly, their go-to-guy for assassinations.
Overt assassinations were pretty simple when Shikamaru could get the target to stand still when he came barrelling down on him.
But even the covert assassinations (the death of a number of the members of the Daimyo's court came to mind) were mostly handled by Chouji.
He knew his food. He knew what types of food were poisonous in what doses, how to cook (or undercook) food so that tasters are left pleased and politicians were left dead. He knew poisonous fish and poisonous mushrooms, he knew the ways food interacted to become poisonous. He knew how to undercook meat so that it still felt and tasted well-done. He knew where to find ingredients covered in the most dangerous parasites or pathogens.
Who would ever suspect the friendly (if slightly porky) chef of killing his employer? Obviously it was the suppliers fault.
Chouji had lost only one eating contest in his entire life.
It wasn't to Naruto. Chouji's love for Ramen approached Naruto's. And Chouji had just a bit more room to pack it away.
No, he lost the one contest to Anko Mitarashi. He never cared for dango.
In truth, Chouji didn't care for sweet foods at all.
He was the one who gave the best mission reports.
Shikamaru's were too precise, including everything the Nara had seen and everything he then deduced about it. He was a Nara, that's quite a lot.
Ino was too prone to embellishment, of trying to make a mission appear more or less dangerous or complicated. It wasn't her fault.
Asuma never felt he should. He was trying to teach his genin something, after all.
Chouji's reports were simple, but accurate. And his were, always, the easiest ones to follow and decipher.
Even if his handwriting was borderline illegible.
Chouji hated himself. He hated himself not because he was fat (he wasn't, honest. He was stout, yes, but it was needed for the Akimichi techniques and he wasn't the slowest or least stealthy of the Twelve) or that his clan wasn't the richest or most famous. Not because he was fire-natured (so common in Konoha) or that his ninjutsu was predictable.
He hated himself because he was jealous and he didn't need to be. He was jealous of Shikamaru's genius. He was jealous of Ino's carefree personality. He was jealous of Asuma's easy judge of character.
He was, in truth, jealous of a great many things.
It was, he felt, his one greatest failing and the only one he never did manage to excise.
Chouji had a little brother. It was tradition for any clan head. A heir and a spare.
Chouji's little brother was stillborn. No-one, no-one, outside the Akimichi, Yamanaka and Nara clans knew.
AN: I suddenly find myself loving Chouji.
Also? The Choji vs. Chouji debate? I don't actually care that much, but you can obviously see which one I favour.
Anyway, I'm going to try to do at least two of the genin per day, in no particular order.
Enjoy and review, please.
~GrinGrin
Written: 04/12/2013
Posted: 04/12/2013
Updated: 04/12/2013