After sun up. [...the plan was for him to stick around the camp just long enough to build up some more chakra before going back out to join them. He didn't really get the chance.]

Someone mentioned seeing them though, when I was trying to catch up to them out there. That was just a few hours before I wound up here.

[Chouji and Naruto have freak stamina, and were both doing fine in that department when they left that morning. So if someone saw them alive, which they did, he's confident they'd have made it out all right. And Shino is smart - he above all, Shikamaru can trust to take care of himself.

He doesn't think any of them are dead - that much should be obvious. Whether they're hurt or not is what he's concerned with. So now he just needs visual confirmation.

And into the tent they go, then.]