Hello! I am still alive! This was not beta'd like usual. I apologize to my lovely betas in advance. All errors are on me.

This was a disaster. From what Ino understood, the kunai was supposed to be a marker to teleport to. Instead, when Naruto activated it, it had somehow managed to drag everyone with him in the near vicinity somewhere else. How did he manage to screw that up?

They had appeared on a bed in a room that Ino was very familiar with by now, and there was an uncomfortable feeling building in her gut as the woman who had woken up to a pile of genin and recently promoted chūnin in her bed started to have a full-on breakdown. She had performed the mind-body switch technique just a few times since the first time, just to confirm and then do the research she needed to know to try to change things… Had it really had such a negative effect on her mental health?

"What do you mean, not real?" Naruto sounded indignant.

"Not real! Fictional!" the woman said, hysterically.

Ino watched as the others began to glance at each other, unsure of what to say or do in response to that kind of claim or level of upset from a civilian woman. All of them but Shikamaru, who was looking at her with a contemplative expression.

"Ino." Shikamaru's voice cut through everything else, with an intensity he rarely bothered with. "What did you do?

"What? I didn't do anything!" Even as she spoke, she realized she sounded too defensive.

Chōji swallowed as he did his best to move off of the bed they had landed on.

Shikamaru was audibly upset, and it made him feel even more worried about whatever it was that had happened, and Ino's defensive response had been loud enough to get everyone else's attention.

"No, you did do something," Shikamaru pressed, focusing on her. Despite the dark room, Chōji could tell that Shikamaru had found and was meeting Ino's eyes with his own. The Nara needed light for their jutsu to do things, but they were just as comfortable with near darkness. They had to be, for the really big jutsu.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she tried to insist, backing off of the bed until she was standing on the carpet.

It was the wrong move.

Shikamaru didn't have that much of a temper, usually, but everything going on in the last few months had been eating at him in ways that Chōji couldn't do anything about, and whatever Shikamaru thought he knew, combined with Ino's reaction, was just too much.

"Don't lie to me!"

Ino retreated, and her back hit one of the folded closet doors behind her.

"Do you really think I'm stupid enough that I can't tell when you're lying? We've known each other since before we can remember! You've been lying to us for months now! What did you do?"

"Shikamaru…" Chōji began.

Shikamaru didn't even bother to turn towards him, his full attention centered on Ino. "No, I'm not going to back off," he answered. "She nearly got us killed! She nearly got you killed! She's been evading answering anything and has acted weird for months, even before the exams. And now wherever this is. I'm tired of giving her the benefit of the doubt, we should have confronted her ages ago. Nothing's been adding up or making sense."

"It wasn't on purpose," Ino said. "I just— I just wanted to make everything better."

Chōji felt like a rock had planted itself in his stomach. Those weren't good words to say; whatever they were intended was usually different from what they really meant.

He wasn't the only one to pick up on it.

"Make what better?" Sakura asked, her voice careful.

"Asuma-sensei, my dad, Shikamaru's dad… They're— they're supposed to—"

Ino couldn't finish it, but Chōji could guess what she was trying to say.

They were supposed to die.

It didn't make him feel any better or less confused that his dad wasn't included.

It was enough for the strange woman to come out of the breakdown she was having, at least a bit, though. "You. You're why I haven't been sleeping."

Chōji turned to look at the woman, just as she turned on the lamp on the bed stand.

Ino let out a whimper.

"Ino?" Sakura asked.

The woman rubbed at her face, staring at them all hollowly for a moment, before focusing on Ino again. "This isn't supposed to be real," she repeated to herself. "None of you are supposed to be real."

"You keep saying that," Naruto said, speaking up. "What's that even supposed to mean?"

"It means having recurring dreams about being a character from a kid's cartoon isn't supposed to result in most of the main cast crushing me in my bed!"

Chōji met Shikamaru's gaze just in time to see things click into place on Shikamaru's face, and beyond that, Ino's face lost what color it still had.

"Sasuke…?" Ino whispered.

"Fuck."

It didn't help Chōji feel any better that everyone else seemed to be just as confused as he was.

"What?" Sakura looked between Ino and the woman. "But—"

"That kunai was supposed to take us to Sasuke," Naruto said. "I've tested it! It worked on other stuff! Not wherever this is!"

The woman laughed, bitter. "Of course, it works out like this. Like the stupid mark from Orochimaru. Shit. I think I really would have been better off going crazy! Not whatever the fuck this is!"

Naruto was starting to look visibly annoyed. "This isn't telling me anything!" He whipped around, looking at everyone else in hopes they would say something.

"She's been dreaming about being Sasuke," Ino said, voice faint from realization. "That's why my jutsu kept bringing me here. I kind of figured that she was connected to Sasuke somehow but—"

"Not like that?" The woman's voice cut in, angry. "I've been losing my mind because of you. I'm not sure I haven't lost my damn mind right now! Dreaming was one thing, but I've spent most of the last two weeks thinking I was going insane because as far as I could tell I was watching the anime and looking up things on my phone! Huge blocks of my life just missing!"

"It wasn't on purpose," Ino tried to say.

"Once isn't on purpose," she answered, sharp. "Not however many times it was." The woman pushed herself out of the bed, her weight shifted to keep most of it off of her left leg, turning her attention to Naruto again. "Do whatever it was you did with the kunai and go back."

"Um," Naruto started.

"What do you mean, 'um'?" the woman said, and Chōji had a sudden sinking feeling.

"I only really meant for it to take us one-way, but I would be able to change it to go back maybe but um. Ican'tfeelmychakra."

"What—"

"I can't feel mine either," Tenten said, voice slow.

Reaching inwards, Chōji couldn't feel anything either, just rising panic.

He wasn't the only one, because everyone else was erupting with questions.

"How are we supposed to get back?"

"Where are we?"

"Why can't we feel our chakra?"

The woman inhaled. "Calm down," she said, just loud enough and with enough authority in her voice that they all immediately started to settle. "Calm down. Get out of my bedroom. This isn't big enough for twelve people."

Chōji had to agree there; by now, almost everyone was on the floor, and between there being so many of them and Sakura's rescue squad having their bags on them, the available space around the bed was almost entirely taken up and it was crowded.

"I don't want to ignore your request, because it's very reasonable," Lee said, speaking up, and the older boy sounded embarrassed, "but I can't move."

"What do you mean, you can't move?" the woman said.

"The weights on my ankles are pinning me down," Lee answered, voice tight, "and without being able to use chakra, I can't lift my legs. Gai-sensei told me to never try to take them off without using chakra unless I felt like risking crushing my feet."

Chōji was suddenly very glad that he had ended up with Asuma-sensei as his team's teacher.

The woman closed her eyes for a moment, and took another deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose before opening them. "I'm not going to ask how much they weigh," she said, and it was obvious to Chōji that that was meant for her and not for any of them. "Hinata, there's a light switch behind you, please turn it on."

"They're—"

"I do not want to know," the woman said, cutting Lee off, just as Hinata turned the ceiling light on in the room.

They were attached to a ceiling fan, which immediately started running as well.

With the lights on, and his attention on Lee and the bed now, it was obvious that Lee was sunken deep into the bed's mattress, not just the bedding, and he had a heavily strained and pale expression on his face from what had to be pain.

Chōji didn't want to know what sort of training Lee had gone through that he had been able to keep his voice as steady as it was when his face looked like that.

He went over to help.

It took all of the boys to slowly lower Lee onto his back without causing the weights to move and pry them off without causing any more injury or damage than they had already.

He could tell that they had ruined the woman's bed once Lee was off of it; Lee had initially landed on the corner, and that whole section was probably crushed, under the blankets and sheets.

Chōji appreciated the fact that the woman didn't let Lee tell them how heavy the weights were, because, after that, he really didn't want to know.

Lee was able to walk after sitting down and having a moment to recover, but it was very carefully all the same.

It was an uncomfortable thought to think that the only thing that had probably prevented Lee's feet from crushing under the weight had been the bed, but no one else seemed to be worried or thinking about that, so Chōji didn't say anything about it.

While Chōji had never been great at the basic science covered in the academy, weight, density, and mass were things he had to know about because of his clan's techniques.

Too much density could be bad.

She shuffled them out of the room after that.

"The bathroom is there if you need it," she said, pointing to one door, "and my office is behind the next door. I'd rather you not snoop around, but I can't stop you, considering Ino did."

Ino cringed in on herself.

The woman went into the office and quickly returned with a dark-paned thing in her hands.

It was obvious when they entered the living area that she was in an apartment, a bit like Asuma-sensei's. The living room and dining room opened onto each other, with the kitchen split off.

She inhaled again once they were all in the living space. "I don't care what you do as long as you don't destroy my things. You probably shouldn't leave the apartment."

"What if Akamaru needs to go?" Kiba spoke up.

The woman sighed. "There's a porch," she said, pointing at one door. "Let him go out by himself. Tattooed kids aren't normal here."

After that, her eyes flicked towards Sakura, and she held not just the thing she had taken from the office, but a smaller one that looked like it out to her. "It's a phone and a tablet. The unlock patterns are the same." She tapped a button on the smaller one, holding it out at an angle for Sakura and everyone else to see.

To Chōji's surprise, the surface lit up; it was a screen like a computer, with dots on it above a swirl. She pressed her finger against the screen and drew lines between the dots, and the screen bloomed with more color.

"Did you get that?" she asked.

Sakura nodded, and she looked as uncertain as Chōji felt. "Yes, but why?"

"The smaller one is a phone, the bigger one is a tablet. Between that and the tv, I'm sure Ino can catch you up. I'm going back to sleep because I refuse to deal with this without more rest."

"Wait," Sakura said, her voice a bit more firm. "What— what should we call you?"

"My name is Socorro," the woman said. "Just that's fine."

With that, she returned to the bedroom, leaving Chōji and the others in the living area.

It didn't help Chōji feel any better that Lee dropped into one of the dining table chairs first, to grip one of his ankles and start to massage it, but it still seemed to break the unsureness of any of them doing anything, and slowly all of them were sitting down or leaning against something, sandals removed and packs on the floor, except Ino.

Sakura had set the tablet and strange-looking phone on the coffee table and was staring at them, biting her lip. "She said 'cartoon' earlier…"

"There's a show," Ino said, not meeting anyone's gaze. "It's about Naruto."

Naruto's eyes grew wide, and his attention, which had been mostly focused on Sakura, moved to Ino. "About me?"

"Him?" Kiba said, at the same time.

"And about things that are supposed to happen," Ino continued. "I— some of it hasn't happened the way it was supposed to, but a lot of it's been true so far."

Chōji was already looking at Shikamaru, which was just as well.

Shikamaru was frowning, and he looked over at Naruto for a split second before he stood up and Chōji was suddenly glad that none of them could use chakra right now. "You nearly got us killed over a cartoon? Over Naruto? What, does it have him becoming Hokage, too?" Ino cringed backward, which Shikamaru took as a response. "It does, doesn't it?"

Chōji stood up just in time to yank Shikamaru back down before he could physically lunge at Ino.

"What else did it have, Ino? Is that what you've been bullying people over? Because you've been trying to make everyone do things ahead of time? Because you think you know better?" Shikamaru's eyes narrowed, focusing on Sakura before he got an ugly expression on his face.

Chōji didn't know how to stop him, not without making things worse.

"Is that why you went and became all friendly with Sakura again all of a sudden?" Shikamaru spat out. "Is that why you pushed her to ask Tsunade to train her?"

Sakura's eyes widened, and she looked at Ino as well.

Ino was tearing up, hiccuping. "I— People are supposed to— A war's supposed to— Our dads—"

"They're soldiers!" Shikamaru shouted. "They're shinobi! If they die it's from doing their jobs! Do you think your dad would really thank you for doing this? My dad? Do you think—"

"Ino, is that really why we made up?" Sakura asked, cutting Shikamaru off.

"Who else is supposed to die or get injured in this cartoon?" Shino asked before Ino could even answer. "If there's really supposed to be a war, it's unlikely only you and your team would be touched."

"Hinata's cousin."

Tenten let out a small gasp, and from the corner of his eye, Chōji could see Neji's fists close into fists.

Chōji did his best to not look in Hinata's direction.

"Have you done anything there?" Shino asked.

Ino was silent.

Chōji had to grapple with Shikamaru to really keep him from going after Ino now, slapping a hand over Shikamaru's mouth before he could yell any more.

"I don't think talking about this anymore right now's gonna help," Chōji said, and he hated that everyone's attention snapped to him, just like that; he wasn't used to getting much attention from anyone outside of his clan, or Ino's or Shikamaru's for that matter, and they usually ignored him, except for right now. "Maybe we should take a nap or something."

"A nap? You're joking, right?" Kiba asked.

"Sakura? What do you say?" Tenten asked.

Sakura straightened up, her gaze shifting from Ino to Tenten, reminding Chōji that Sakura was supposed to be in charge.

It hadn't been that long ago, and yet it felt like a completely separate life because of everything that had been happening.

"Oh, right," Sakura said, mostly to herself. She inhaled before speaking again. "That's a good idea, Chōji. It was already pretty late and… it looks like it's late here, too," she slowed to a pause to look at the strange phone in her lap. "Everyone's tired and it'll help everyone's tempers if we take a step back and rest first before we try to go over this again."

This was a very different Sakura from the one who used to follow Ino around.

"Besides, we have more questions for Socorro-san and I think those are going to have to wait until she wakes up," Sakura finished.

"Sakura…" Ino started.

Sakura breathed in again, shutting her eyes. "I don't want to talk to you right now, Ino. Just leave me alone."

"I—" Ino stopped at the glare that Naruto was giving her. "Sorry," she murmured.

Rather than try to approach the couches or the dining table where everyone else was, Ino backed up to the wall by the door that looked like it was the main entrance into the apartment and slid down against it, putting her arms around her knees and resting her head on them.

Chōji just kept a grip on Shikamaru in case he tried to do anything else, but thankfully it looked like the rare burst of energy had left him. It didn't leave him feeling any better though. It wasn't going to last. Shikamaru had always been good at waiting, and Chōji knew that better than anyone else in the room except Ino.

Neji got up from where he was sitting and disappeared back down the hallway, both of his teammates following him, Tenten casting a concerned look at Lee as she did. Lee was walking very carefully.

Kiba left his spot at the table and opened the door Socorro had directed them at to let Akamaru out, and the puppy came back in a few minutes later.

Everyone slowly settled down, and slowly the mostly dark room was filled with slumbering figures except for Chōji. Even Shikamaru had dozed off, but Chōji wasn't able to will himself to sleep, eyes still moving to look at the strange phone and the tiny digital clock on its surface passing the time until the window near him started to show grey light.

"You can let go of me now, Chōji," Shikamaru grumbled, and Chōji blinked for a moment, realizing that the room was now filled with morning light coming through the blinds. At some point he had fallen asleep, but he couldn't remember when, and the phone was no longer on the coffee table, and neither was the tablet.

Instead, the tablet was in Shikamaru's hands, and his attention was concentrated on it despite the fact that Chōji was still holding onto him.

There was a shogi board on the screen.

Chōji was aware that games could be played on computers and stuff, but his only personal experience with them was the video game console his cousin Maruten had spent a whole month and a half's pay on— for the console, games, and getting it shipped to Konoha— and it didn't look remotely as good as what Shikamaru was focusing on right now.

When he looked over, Sakura looked slightly embarrassed from her spot next to Naruto on the floor, Shino and Hinata on the other side. She must have given Shikamaru the tablet, Chōji guessed. Kiba was flopped down nearby, but not paying attention to what was going on at the coffee table.

The strange kunai that had landed them in this situation was in the center of the coffee table, surrounded by bunches of printer paper that even from his spot on the couch Chōji could tell was Naruto's usual messy scrawl, mixed with different variations of the seals that were on the kunai.

Chōji let go of Shikamaru, and Shikamaru slid over to sit on the couch properly, attention still on his ongoing game.

"Chōji, do you have any familiarity with fuinjutsu or jutsu-shiki?" Shino asked.

Chōji shook his head. "No, why?"

"We— I," Hinata corrected, when Shino looked at her, "think that Naruto's kunai might have acted strangely because I don't think this is fuinjutsu," she explained. "At least not all of it. But I only know a little," Hinata admitted. "So I'm not sure."

"Tenten probably knows the most fuinjutsu," Sakura said, "But…"

She didn't need to finish. Chōji could already guess why Tenten was nowhere in sight. Between what Ino had said about Neji, and Lee getting hurt just from them ending up wherever this was, she had her team to focus on first.

Whatever Naruto was trying to do with the different scribbled versions of the kunai's formula wasn't doing anything, and everyone else was starting to look really discouraged by the time Chōji felt his stomach grumble from hunger, loud enough that everyone else in the room looked at him.

He winced. "Sorry."

"Did any of you bring rations with you when you prepared for this mission?" Shikamaru asked, attention still on the tablet screen. "Because it's either that or raiding the kitchen."

While he knew Shikamaru didn't mean it badly, it still made Chōji feel a sudden pang of guilt. He knew how much he ate compared to everyone else on his team.

Before any of them could answer, their attention was pulled away by the sound of footsteps.

"I guess it was too much to hope that this was a bad dream, too," Socorro said, coming out of the hallway.

The woman was dressed in a collared long sleeve shirt and denim trousers, her hair brushed and no longer as wild-looking as it had been when they had all landed on her bed. She still looked exhausted, but to Chōji's confusion, there had been an air of amusement to her words.

"Did any of you get sleep?" she asked, looking around at them. It was slow and steady, almost like she was confirming they were all there.

Probably was doing that, Chōji realized, remembering what she had said.

She had said she had been dreaming about being Sasuke, but what that meant…

Chōji wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"A little, thank you," Sakura said, keeping her eyes directed at the papers on the table. "Your phone shook."

"Oh no, did that wake you up?" She walked into the room properly, and to Chōji's surprise, it was with a mild limp. "Sorry, I should have made sure it was just on silent." She picked the phone up from its spot on the table, going out of her way to not touch any of the papers near it. She pressed her thumb to the screen, flicking at it afterward with her thumb. "I take it you haven't figured out how to go back yet," she said, eyes on its screen.

"No," Naruto answered, staring at her. His eyes were narrowed. That usually meant Naruto was about to cause trouble when they were in the academy.

It lasted long enough that Chōji started to feel unnerved, and just before he was going to turn away, he heard the woman let out a small snort.

"Have you stared enough yet?" she asked. Despite appearances, she had picked up on what Naruto had been doing after all.

"No!" Naruto squawked, turning to look at Sakura in alarm.

She raised an eyebrow at him, and that sent Naruto flailing.

"Uh, hey! Not like that!"

"Try making your mind up," she said, and with obvious caution, she reached down and tousled Naruto's hair.

Naruto relaxed.

Whatever it was that happened, a bunch of tension had left the room.

Socorro sighed, and looked around. "I'm going to wash my face, grab some things from my room, and then come back out here. One of you go get Gai's team, I'm pretty sure they're holed up in my office."

"I'll do it," Shino said, and it was obvious to Chōji that he was stopping Hinata from volunteering.

Shino returned with Tenten, Neji, and Lee trailing after him before she returned.

When she did, she had a cane hanging from the crook of her elbow, a purse hanging from her shoulder, and to Chōji's confusion, balled-up dark blue cloth and cheap bath sandals in one hand. She also had closed-toe shoes on despite the fact that she must have come from her bedroom.

She tossed the cloth and sandals to Shikamaru, who barely caught them in time; the cloth had started to unfurl, showing that it was a t-shirt.

"You're coming with me because I'm going to need an extra pair of hands," she said. "I'm going shopping. Change into that shirt, take off the holster, and move your ponytail down, put it into a bun, or take it out."

"What? Why me?" Shikamaru scowled, and Chōji suddenly felt a little bad for her. When Shikamaru got his mind set on something, he barely ever changed his mind, and right now it was clear that Shikamaru didn't want to go anywhere.

"Because you look normal for here," she said, putting her hands on her hips. "People don't have natural pink hair, face markings, eyes like the Byakugan, or are filled with bugs." Her focus shifted towards Shino for a moment, with an apologetic look on her face.

Everything she had listed just took most of them out, including Chōji.

"Why not Tenten or Lee?"

Chōji didn't even need to ask why Ino wouldn't be an option for Shikamaru to bring up.

"I want them here to keep an eye on things because they're older and more mature," Socorro answered, voice even. "They also haven't been involved in most of this insanity. Go change."

Shikamaru only scowled further, but he pushed up off of the couch, taking the shirt and sandals with him. He left down the hallway, and there was the slamming of a door a few seconds later.

Socorro only sighed but didn't say anything.

Shikamaru returned, looking visibly unhappy. The t-shirt's hem hung well past the top of his pants, with the words 'Mountain Clean-Up' on it above a simple jagged line that Chōji could only guess was meant to represent a mountain range. It was obviously meant for an adult, and while Socorro wasn't that much taller or larger than them, it was still enough to be too big for him.

The low ponytail set at the nape of his neck didn't look right on Shikamaru. Without his hair pulled back and up, it meant that a few strands ended up loose, framing his face in a way that suddenly made it clear how much Shikamaru looked like his mother, too.

He dropped his holster and wraps on the couch next to Chōji.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," Socorro told them all. "I don't have enough groceries for twelve people, and I have an ugly feeling I'm going to be stuck with you all for the near future."

"I'm going to figure out how to make the seal work!" Naruto insisted.

"And activate it with what chakra?" she immediately shot back, before pinching her nose.

"Uh… I haven't figured that part out."

Socorro only shook her head. "Tenten, you're in charge while I'm gone."

Tenten looked stricken and looked around at everyone else. "I appreciate your faith in me but… we're still supposed to be on a mission, even if it's ended up with us here. Sakura's supposed to be in charge as the mission commander."

Socorro's eyes widened for a moment. "Sakura was in charge?" she said, with enough surprise that it made Sakura flinch, and she winced. "No, I didn't mean it like that, sorry," she apologized, shaking her head. "Who else was supposed to be on this mission? Because I see fewer bags than people."

"Besides me," Sakura said, slowly, not looking up at the woman, "it was supposed to be Naruto, Tenten, Shino, Hinata, and Ino."

"Kiba tried to join us even though he wasn't supposed to," Naruto added.

"And that led to everyone else?" Socorro shook her head slowly. "Fine. Sakura's in charge. Grab anything you want from the kitchen, but there isn't much. I was putting off getting groceries. Just stay inside."

She unlocked the door and held it open for Shikamaru, who sulkily pulled on the cheap sandals and followed her outside.

The door locked behind them.

Shikamaru felt the dry heat immediately drop down on him the moment the door closed, and he immediately pinned a wary eye on the woman as she locked the door.

None of this made sense, except for the fact that it did, and Shikamaru hated it.

It explained why Ino had started acting so strange even before what happened in the Forest of Death with her near-suicide attempt. It explained why she had pushed their team to train harder and advance more than they would have otherwise. It explained why she didn't just make friends with Sakura again but had pushed them to hang out with Sakura's team as well, even though even with her crush on Sasuke she hadn't bothered to get close to him and had always been annoyed by Naruto whenever she ended up in a class with him. Encouraging Naruto, even.

He didn't want to know the details, but he could already tell he was going to have no choice and it was going to make him even angrier at Ino.

Her though, he didn't know what to make of yet.

Shikamaru wasn't sure he wanted to know the full depth of what she had meant when she said she was dreaming about being Sasuke, but it and everything else had danced through his head before he had finally fallen asleep and even after he had woken up, despite investigating and looking at the tablet computer, even after finding and running through the shogi game he had discovered.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Just follow me."

The door for her apartment was in an alcove, set in from the building's front, metal stairs dividing the concrete and white paneled space from the other door on the other side. It was completely symmetrical, all straight lines and squared angles, the only differences being the numbers and mats.

Soulless and exactly the same. Nothing like Konoha.

Sidewalk ran past the sheltered entry space, the woman adjusted her cane and walked out towards it, and for lack of better choices, Shikamaru followed her.

Strips of closely cut grass— dry looking— and squared bushes separated the walkway from the building on the other side from them, and he could see the living room window and enclosed porch. From the outside, it wasn't obvious that there were ten people inside her apartment.

The concrete sidewalk led to a dark paved street, lined with what had to be vehicles, all facing them, a rock wall on the other side of the road cutting it off from an ugly tan cliffside occasionally marked with dry shrubs.

Shikamaru came to a complete stop, and she only noticed once she had gotten several feet away, turning towards him.

"They're just cars," she said, words slowing as she said them. At least she wasn't that stupid, because she continued with "We're getting in my truck," and pointed towards even more of them further down one way, "and we're driving to the store."

They were just big metal carts. Like trains, which meant there had to be an engine hiding somewhere inside, probably the front. No rails.

Telling himself that didn't make himself feel any more comfortable about the idea of getting into something that was completely different from anything he had ever seen before, and it was just hammering in that he had no idea where they were. Completely different weather and climate. Different time of year, if the tablet was really telling the truth that it was March and not late September. Unable to feel his chakra at all or even access it.

It made him regret ignoring doing taijutsu practice whenever his mom had nagged at him.

She stopped near a silver-coated vehicle that had a different shape and form factor from most of the others lining the street. They were all large enough that it was obvious they were meant to hold people, but plenty of them were small enough that Shikamaru could tell that transporting people was the main job. Hers though, besides having a tiny inside space that he could tell was meant for only a couple of people, had a long outside platform. It was clearly meant for carrying things but cart drivers usually loaded and unloaded, too…

That didn't line up with the cane.

She opened the door on one side and motioned for him to get in, closing the door on him once he was sitting inside, and got in on the other side, tucking her cane in the space behind her. Looking back, he could see there was seating squeezed in behind them.

She closed the door and inhaled. "Cars don't exist over there, do they?" she asked.

"Not really," he hedged.

She reached to the side of the door and yanked a doubled vinyl belt that ended with a flat bite piece forward enough that he could tell she was trying to demonstrate. "This is a seatbelt, there's one on your side. It goes around your waist. The top goes over your shoulder and across your torso. There's a buckle here." She snapped the bite in, angling it and the red inlay towards him so he could see the whole time. "Put it on, because I am not getting in trouble because of you."

He copied her, eyes still looking at the wheel and all of the things that were in front of her.

She shook her head slightly, catching sight of what he was looking at. "Steering wheel to turn, there pedals down here to go or stop, ignition to start the engine or stop it, change gears. It's a combustion engine, and I know those are over there. Do you have anything else you want to know or can I start driving?"

He didn't answer.

That went a long way in why there wasn't anything like this that he was aware of in Fire, much less anywhere else.

Trains used combustion engines. Trains and ninja didn't mix well. Shikamaru had tuned out, fallen asleep to, and even just walked away from dozens of boring conversations with his dad involved over the issue of trains, whether it was because of the daimyō wanting more jōnin to protect the growing rail network that completely avoided Konoha or because of the daimyō wanting to have trains come to Konoha.

Shikamaru was mostly sure that it wasn't classified, since his dad was willing to talk about it in front of him.

Shaking her head, she slotted a key into the ignition and turned it, starting the engine. Cool air started to blow from the vents in front of him.

He resisted the urge to grip onto the armrests when it started to move, instead looking out the window.

The apartment building they had come out of looked like all the others nearby. Square, boxy, two-storied, and nearly identical, the only difference Shikamaru could tell from the angle he could see them was the way they were oriented.

As they got further away, it became clear to Shikamaru that they were on the hills at the foot of a mountain.

Soon enough, it became obvious that the grass he had dismissed as being dry earlier was lush for here; there was barely any groundcover or trees, and the sides of the streets that weren't covered with more of the dark asphalt for the vehicles to be left at were mostly sandy looking soil or rocks, with the occasional lonely looking tree or weedy shrub. There were even cacti.

The streets were filled with even more vehicles, lined with more large and ugly blocky buildings.

Sandy. Dusty. All dull tans, browns, and grays that reminded him of photos and videos from the Land of Wind.

Nothing like Konoha or Fire at all.

"Why do you want me with you?" he asked, again. "I don't believe it's because you really need my help." He was still trying to figure out exactly how to make it more difficult for her to make her regret taking him with her, but he hadn't decided on how, yet. There were too many factors to take into consideration.

"Because you're the most likely to start shit," she answered, eyes focused on the road ahead. "And I don't need you causing trouble when I'm not there, even if it means you're going to be a pain in my ass."

He hadn't expected that answer, and it meant that it'd only make sabotaging anything that much more difficult if he decided to use that strategy.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"So you're saying you haven't been giving Asuma a hard time?"

"He's the one who started it," Shikamaru answered, feeling unexpectedly defensive. "How much do you even know, anyway?"

"Asuma told us about Kurenai's pregnancy and you started arguing over it," she told him. "I don't know everything, but I've seen enough."

Shikamaru changed direction. "Then why are you protecting Ino? You should be mad at her, too."

The vehicle came to a stop; an intersection, with other vehicles going across in front of them. The lights hanging over the other side were red.

She turned to look at him. "I am twenty-seven years old," she said, looking him in the eye. "However much I am unhappy at this, I am an adult. I am not getting into fights with twelve-year-olds. As far as I'm concerned, my responsibility right now is to not get into fights with children. It's to keep you all from tearing each other apart and not let you all starve while I try to figure out how to get you all back home."

"I'm thirteen," Shikamaru told her. "So is Ino."

"Fine, thirteen-year-olds."

Her response didn't make him feel like she was taking him that seriously.

"Why should I believe you?"

"Besides the fact that I didn't kick you all out of my apartment immediately?" she answered, raising an eyebrow at him. "None of you are prepared to be here and none of you should be here. You're supposed to be fictional characters in a series I started following when I was your age. Not real or whatever is going on. I'm not interested in getting dragged into whatever drama is going to happen on top of that."

A loud beeping noise, muffled, came from behind them. Another vehicle.

She looked forward and swore under her breath before putting the vehicle into motion again. Green light, no more vehicles crossing in front of them.

She didn't elaborate, and Shikamaru decided against pressing further immediately.

Fictional.

It kept coming up, and it didn't make him feel any better or happier about what it could imply about anything.

Shikamaru resisted the urge to grip the seat or the vehicle door on his side when the whole thing turned onto a different street, wider and with even more vehicles, and soon became clear that it was heading for a giant curved bridge that was towering over the land beneath it.

He clenched his hands into fists, relaxing only a bit when it was obvious they weren't going up the curved bridge but heading down to the immense road that was sunk so far beneath it that Shikamaru hadn't seen it earlier.

They were going even faster now, at speeds that most shinobi couldn't sustain for long even in combat, never mind for extended travel. All while in a thing that Shikamaru's brain was repeating over and over was explosive thanks to the combustion engine, surrounded by even more of them. Just one strong fire jutsu would cause a chain reaction of destruction, and he could hear that in his dad's voice inside of his head.

"I'm an experienced and safe driver," she said, irritating Shikamaru at the fact she had noticed at all. "I didn't think this would stress you out. We'll take the long way back. It'll be slower."

Instead of answering, he stared out the side window instead at the ugly large buildings that were visible even from this far away.

None of them were remotely identifiable or gave him any clue as to what they were supposed to be except the fat and blocky movie theater— thanks to its giant sign that said it was one— and the inn, which was also ugly.

No trees, no grass, just asphalt and beige.

She turned the vehicle off of the oversized deathtrap road and onto a broad avenue. This one at least had short, sad, and spindly trees with dusty green leaves that were attempting to break up the road from the large empty asphalt lots on the sides of each street.

She turned them down another more narrow street, which to Shikamaru's dismay led them to one of the giant boxy buildings that had been visible before. Just the front, the name visible in giant letters above the various departments the store had.

'Wal-Mart.'

"Try not to stare at everything while we're in there, alright?" she told him, as she unbuckled herself and then leaned over to do the same for Shikamaru before opening the door and getting out in a smooth move that included grabbing her cane.

He scowled and shoved the belt away as it tried to snap back to the side of the vehicle and got out on the other side, unable to resist slamming the door hard.

Shikamaru immediately found himself coughing the moment he took a breath; the air was polluted and filled with exhaust as if he had gone into one of the few industrial sectors inside the village on a day where the weather pushed everything down to the ground.

The whole area was filled with vehicles, and as he looked out into the lot he could see one that was actually spewing out nasty-looking black smoke from a back pipe.

He had learned that lesson when he was still in the academy; breathing in poor-quality air wasn't a trade-off he was willing to make to get home five minutes earlier than his usual route.

Shikamaru resigned himself to ending up with grey snot, ignoring the little Ino-sounding voice in his head that insisted it wouldn't get that bad.

"Are you alright?"

He only glared at her before he straightened up, trying to resist coughing any further.

"Fine. Just don't wander off."

"Or what?" He wasn't a captive and even without the benefit of chakra Shikamaru was fairly certain he would be able to take her down if it was necessary.

"Or I get to be embarrassed at losing a kid who's old enough to not get lost in a store," she said, voice pointed.

She started off for the front of the store, going faster with the cane than Shikamaru expected, forcing him to catch up.

Ugly and large square box building, polluting vehicles, unhealthy air, no trees or grass, bossy strange woman… All of this was just a miserable experience so far on its own.

There weren't any buildings this pointlessly big in Konoha, and even when they got dragged around on that trip by Jiraiya, none of the ones in any of the towns with larger buildings were this bulky and wide, even in the city they had visited. If they were, Shikamaru hadn't noticed because they weren't such total ugly wastes of space.

Air conditioning immediately blasted down on him the moment they crossed through the threshold of the automatic glass doors, a shock compared to how warm it had been outside.

The only positive was that the air wasn't nearly as awful as it was outside.

She went and grabbed a cart, hooking the cane over the push bar, only checking briefly to make sure he was still nearby before heading into the rest of the store.

Even the questionable old convenience store Shikamaru had successfully bought a pack of cigarettes from Asuma-sensei had looked cleaner and better organized than this, and that was run out of a converted warehouse, but at least it didn't still look mostly like one.

One side was filled with flats of stacked boxes filled with more thin television like he had seen in her apartment, claiming to be on sale, and the flanking side was shelves stuffed with bright cellophane-wrapped brackets filled with candy and toys, mixed with large stuffed plush rabbits. For some kind of holiday, if the shelves ahead with more on their ends were anything to go by, but there being so much was unnerving.

"When I said not to wander off, that meant to stay with me," she said, looking back at him from several feet away and ready to turn down an aisle.

He hurried to catch up.

She went past several sections of aisles of more and more stuff before turning down one for personal hygiene— or at least Shikamaru thought until he realized that all of the shelves for the aisle seemed to be filled with only shampoo.

It didn't make him feel any more impressed to realize that at least some of it was conditioner instead.

He waited and watched as she gazed at all the different bottles, before she finally picked a large bottle with bright yellow and blue packaging, with horses on the front, putting it into the cart. The name wasn't something he would have associated with shampoo, at least one meant for people.

Shikamaru took it out to look at it and soon realized that the name was literal. "This is animal shampoo."

"It's not just for animals," she said, defensive.

"It still has instructions for using it on animals. It's supposed to be horse shampoo, isn't it?"

"There are how many of you, again?" she shot back. "It's not bad shampoo."

Shikamaru didn't have to say anything else, at least, because she took the bottle out of his hands, put it back on the shelf, and grabbed a different one, in an even larger bottle. To his mild annoyance, he realized that the horse shampoo had been more expensive, but he was still going to take the cheaper brand over using horse shampoo.

His parents and older family members had talked about cheap clients around him before, and how that was a good way of evaluating them as people. Even if they were willing to pay the mission fees, they sometimes would treat the hired shinobi as less than people, with some of them not even offering them food or shelter.

Even though they weren't supposed to bother his dad about jōnin affairs when he was at home, one of his dad's cousins had done just that a couple of years ago, heading straight to complain to Shikamaru's dad about the mission he had come back from, interrupting the shogi match they had been playing.

Suzaku had been much thinner than he had left the village, slightly grimy, and very unhappy. The month-long mission he had been on was supposed to be routine, guarding a high-profile traveling noble who had wanted jōnin for his guards— except for the fact that the ninja on the mission had been forced to provide their food usually by hunting, weren't given any rooms at any of the inns they had stopped at and had to sleep outside, and as a result couldn't shower or bathe either, which meant they had been resorting to using water jutsu to keep the worst of the grime off, all while having to do guard work at all hours.

The shogi match had been completely forgotten.

Even though she wasn't happy about them being in her apartment either, after a while it became clear that even though there were eleven of them, she wasn't always going for the cheapest options.

Shikamaru didn't know how to feel about that, even as the cart— larger than the ones he was familiar with in Konoha— started to not be so empty, as she dropped other things in before deciding she was done with this part of the too-large store, moving onwards.

She stopped the cart in the middle of the main aisle, next to a box filled with rolled-up fleece blankets, letting out a sigh before looking over at Shikamaru.

"Do you know if they packed blankets or anything?" she asked him.

He hadn't seen anyone who was supposed to be on the mission pull out any blankets, even though the room had been cool enough for Shikamaru to want one.

He shook his head.

She crammed several of the rolled-up blankets into the cart before moving again.

Eventually, they headed a different direction again, away from the bedding— but still no other end of the store in sight— and Shikamaru felt sudden looming concern as women's sleepwear— thankfully only plain and boring pajamas— came into view. Nothing good came out of being near clothing when being forced to go shopping.

The dread was confirmed when she took the cart off of the linoleum, and they were heading towards a partition wall. "Go pick out some underwear," she said.

"What?"

She gave him a longsuffering look. "I'm going to assume that most of you don't have any changes of clothes. I can spare t-shirts and shorts, but I'm not putting up with a bunch of teenage boys with only one pair of underwear each for however long you're stuck here. Go pick out a few packs in sizes for all of you guys. It should be on the other side."

"And if I don't?" he asked, without any rancor to it. Even so, he didn't actually want to do it on his own.

"I'm going to the girls' underwear section," she answered.

Shikamaru sped off, not wanting to think about that, only returning to the outside aisle after he had grabbed a few packages of boxers, making sure that at least one would be big enough for Chōji. He dumped them into the cart the moment she entered the aisle again.

"Last things left are food," she said, "and then we'll be done."

She pushed the cart down to the next wide aisle. By this point Shikamaru was tired of trailing after her, so he started to walk ahead of it.

More clothing on one side, and aisles of shoes on the other. He was beginning to wonder at what wasn't in this store, since he had seen even a section for furniture earlier, and it mad him start to actively pay attention a little, which he immediately regretted.

There was a t-shirt with not just Naruto's name on it, but a cartoon Naruto on it, eating ramen, like it was some kind of advertisement. The jacket was wrong— Naruto's jacket was blue and orange, not black— but it was clearly Naruto all the same.

He came to a sudden stop, and the cart grazed against his side.

Shikamaru hadn't wanted to think about it earlier, what Ino had started to say, to try to excuse everything, and what it could have meant, but that t-shirt supported her insane claim, and he hated it and what it could mean.

"Hey—" she protested, before seeing what caught his attention. She shoved the cart out of the aisle and onto the thin carpet that marked the clothing section before setting a gentle hand on his shoulder and pulling him over, in between the racks of clothes. "Hey," she said again, quieter, eyes meeting his. The shadows under her eyes took on a different meaning, all of a sudden. "I know. It's a lot."

However much he didn't like any of this, she didn't either, he realized.

"We need to get done with shopping first before we go back, alright? If you want, you can go wait in the truck. I'll give you the keys." Despite the fact she had dragged him along against his will earlier, she was changing her mind.

New information required new strategies.

"No," Shikamaru answered. "You said it's just food left."

Socorro let go of his shoulder. "I'll try to make this part quick. I'll give you my phone when we go back to the truck if you want to look things up."

"I'd rather wait."

She exhaled through her nose, lips just barely turning up at the edges. "That's fair."

He felt a bit more centered by the time they reached the food section of the oversized store, enough to only feel exasperated at the fact there was a small restaurant— if only it had more seating than food stalls— tucked in near the front end of the refrigerated goods.

The cart started to fill up, much faster than it had before, even with Shikamaru shaking his head at some of the things she was putting in there.

"It's my food, too," Socorro pointed out, voice wry, when she had caught him making a disgusted look at the plastic bag of shredded cheese she had dropped into the cart. "You're not the only ones eating this."

He had to admit to himself that he was grudgingly won over— just a bit— when she steered the cart down another aisle that was filled with more brands and flavors of chips and other snack foods than he had ever seen in one place and told him to pick three out for Chōji.

Even adults that were supposed to know better sometimes gave Chōji a hard time over his snacks.

By the time they reached the cash registers, Shikamaru had taken over pushing the cart, which was totally full and had taken steadily-increasing work to make everything fit into it.

It had also taken longer than any grocery or shopping trip Shikamaru had ever been forced to make with his mother; as far as he was concerned, the larger cart and the vehicle to carry it all back were downsides if this was what it resulted in, and as far as he could tell from looking around, there were plenty of other people with carts just as full, which meant this was horrifyingly normal here.

Instead of paying with cash, she inserted a plastic card into a little machine on their side of the register.

It was even hotter outside when they finally left, and Shikamaru felt uncomfortable by the time everything was in the interior back section of the truck, both from the heat and from trying to not cough his lungs out.

Socorro motioned for him to get in, and he did so, buckling in when he did to make sure she would get them out of there faster.

Instead, she put the keys in without getting in, not starting the engine but only its air conditioning.

"I'll be back in a bit," she said. "Lock yourself in and wait." Before he could say anything, she gently tossed her phone to him. "Keep yourself occupied."

He knew what she was implying he should do, but instead, he put shogi on it.

Shikamaru had figured that out with the tablet by accident and with some difficulty figuring out how it worked, but this time it was on purpose, even though the smaller screen was less impressive.

It kept him busy, keeping all his attention focused on the game, until there was a tap on the driver's door and Socorro opened it, giving him a sardonic look.

"I said to lock it."

"I didn't need to."

She shook her head, pulling the keys out and stopping the cool air, and disappearing to the rear of the vehicle.

There was the sound of something dropping, and Shikamaru looked at the mirror just in time to see a giant box get shoved into the back, making the whole truck lower just slightly, the truck gate going back up a moment after, and Socorro giving one of the blue-vested store employees what had to be money before she went back to the front, sliding her cane into place as she got in.

"What's that?"

"A futon," she answered.

Futons didn't come in heavy boxes. "That's not a futon."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "It's a futon couch. It converts into a bed. It's not perfect, but it's better than having most of you sleep on the floor for however long."

"You don't think we're returning any time soon."

"While I want that, and I'm sure you all want that, too, I think I'm stuck with you all for now."

It was a grim answer, but it at least gave Shikamaru something to use as a foundation and was better than the uncertainty of earlier.

"Do you want me to start explaining what I know now?" Socorro asked as she buckled her seatbelt.

"No. I don't want to have to hear it again later."

It'd be—

"Too troublesome, huh?" she said, slightly smirking at him, and for just a split second Shikamaru could imagine Sasuke giving that same expression and being a pain exactly the same way, and Naruto's reaction earlier clicked for him.

Socorro was a stranger, but she also wasn't.

"Hopefully by the time we get back, my apartment's still in one piece."

She had said she hadn't wanted to leave him behind because she thought he would cause trouble. But she had also said most of them shouldn't leave because they would stick out, and from what he had seen, that was true. While there had been some people with colorful hair inside the store, it was all obviously dyed, and there had been absolutely no people with face markings.

"Who else did you think is a problem?" He had his suspicions, but…

"Neji."

She turned the key, the engine started, and she reversed the truck out.

Shikamaru couldn't disagree.

A very long time! My apologies, dear readers, because I definitely had not intended to cliffhanger so hard, especially like that, but life moderately steamrollered me, between getting sick after releasing the last chapter, the winter holidays, moving, and starting my first semester of grad school. Everything's mostly settled down now, so I'm hoping to resume more regular updates, especially for the next few months I hope you all are doing well and are ready for summer (or winter, for everyone in the southern hemisphere).

Additionally, for everyone reading here, there's far more content- and I update faster- on AO3.