Leaves of Trees: Konoha Stories

Impressions

Three times Chouji crosses paths with Karui.

The first time he became aware of her was right after the Pain attack. He'd been on his way to the Nara's forest to gather some of the herbs that were needed for the food pills his family made.

Chouji had been rushing, but he'd stopped when he'd heard the crying. It wasn't even a gentle kind of crying. It was a woman—an adult from the sound of it—who was full-on bawling, with unladylike snorts, raw tears, and rough gulps of breath.

Filled with a lot of guilt.

Then a male voice broke through the sounds of crying and said, "Karui, you got it out of your system but you're going to have to apologize to him. You know that, right?"

"Yeah." A sniffle, then she blew her nose into what Chouji hoped was a hanky, or some tissues, at least. "But I don't think I can do it right now, Omoi. Ugh. I feel horrible. But what Konoha did to Killer Bee-sama! Somebody has to pay for that!"

He felt awkward for being here, but he didn't want to give away that he was eavesdropping on their conversation.

The man called Omoi was silent for a while, but then he sighed and said, "It wasn't his fault. But you still need to apologize for beating the shit out of him."

A loud wail. "I know! But when enough time has passed, I'll do it face to face."

The man sighed. "If we live through this inevitable war..."

And the reason for the woman crying finally made sense after—when Shikamaru and Sai had explained why Naruto was so beat up after those Kumo shinobi had stopped by in Konoha.

The second time, he actually saw her—in the middle of the war. He'd been with his division on the sandy beaches of Kumo, fighting against Edo-tensei-ed enemies that still made him tremble with horror, facing the dead who by rights should have been at peace.

And then facing Asuma-sensei, one of the hardest things he'd ever done in his life.

But he'd seen her, Karui, a shinobi of the Cloud, fighting alongside her fellow ninjas. She was hacking, whirling, hitting everything that came within her range. Her hair underneath that bandana was a beautiful shade of auburn. And he'd been close enough to see that her eyes were light, amber, but burning with intensity as she continued to defend herself and the people around her.

He, of course, had his own hands full fighting off the enemy, but mostly holding down the Ino-Shika-Cho Formation with his three-man cell. But even with the intensity of the fighting around him, he was still very aware of her.

During one of the breaks in the fighting, he'd seen her wipe her brow and then grab a drink from one of the buckets being passed around. Instead of drinking from the small cup, though, she'd run over to one of the injured and tried to get the person to drink.

Chouji's impression of her changed in that instant. Despite his initial anger when he'd found out that Karui had been the one who'd inflicted so much pain on Naruto, he decided that at her core, she was nice.

And he liked nice women.

The third time he saw her, the battlefield had moved away from the shores, and he'd watched with bated breath as she fell from the sky, but still yelling encouragement at Killer-Bee when they'd launched their surprise attack against Obito and Madara.

Luckily, one of the other shinobi had caught her and they'd continued to fight until the Juubi had been defeated and they'd all been released from their Tsukuyomi dreams.

Chouji had sat up abruptly when he'd been rescued, startled to see that he was next to Shikamaru. When Madara had cast the genjutsu, he'd fallen next to Shikamaru. But Shikamaru was already getting up, trying to organize some kind of effort to help the seriously injured.

Groggily he stood up, too, and Chouji was hit with the hunger that always hit him when he'd exhausted all his chakra, his energy draining out of him during the war. Still, as he looked around at his fellow shinobi, he could tell that others needed the food pills he'd kept as an emergency and exactly for times like these.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could hear and see Karui, too, doing the same thing. He saw her grab something from her pocket and handed it to the person lying on the ground. At first, they refused, shaking their head, but she shook her fist.

"Eat it!" she yelled. "That should be enough for you to get your energy back. Once you can do that, you can help us with getting everyone up. The more people we can get moving, the quicker we'll all recover."

And the shinobi had quickly taken the small bit of food and chewed it.

Karui suddenly met Chouji's eyes. He held up his palm to show her the rest of his food pills and she nodded in response. She went back to working and he was forced to do the same.

When they'd done all they could, the two of them had suddenly found themselves sitting next to each other, exhausted.

Sitting there in the aftermath of the war, when the worry and chaos had finally subsided, he realized again that underneath her rough and tough exterior, Karui from Kumogakure was a nice woman.

And Chouji definitely liked nice women.