Hyuuga Neji (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
screw_fate) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
one_long_mission2013-04-06 02:03 pm
screw_fate) wrote in one_long_mission2013-04-06 02:03 pm
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[Open] Where do the dead go when they die?
This isn't what he expected.
Neji stands at the outskirts of a village, one he's never seen before, and tries to trace the moments that brought him here. The battlefield, Hinata's suicidal move to protect Naruto, his own moments later to protect them both... The stunning, numbing pain as his body was pierced. Naruto supporting him, holding him up, as he gasped out a few soft words...
And then darkness, and an almost-unfelt flare of pain in his eyes as the seal did its ugly work.
But now, there is no evidence of it. He wears the uniform of the allied army, and it is clean, untorn, unstained. His body is whole, with no pain or weariness.
He can see.
The seal still sits on his forehead, a quiet but tangible presence, a gentle pulse that doesn't quite match up with his heartbeat. Foreign, but for short times, forgettable. It's there, as though he's never died to trigger it.
What happened?
He gains nothing by standing here. Slowly, still feeling a floating sense of unreality as though his feet don't truly touch the ground, he steps forward.
Where am I?
Perhaps there will be answers. Or perhaps this is what death is. His fingers rise to touch his forehead, covered by his hitai-ate, manji pulsing beneath. Is even death not an escape, then?
Who knows?
He enters the village, silent and wondering.
Neji stands at the outskirts of a village, one he's never seen before, and tries to trace the moments that brought him here. The battlefield, Hinata's suicidal move to protect Naruto, his own moments later to protect them both... The stunning, numbing pain as his body was pierced. Naruto supporting him, holding him up, as he gasped out a few soft words...
And then darkness, and an almost-unfelt flare of pain in his eyes as the seal did its ugly work.
But now, there is no evidence of it. He wears the uniform of the allied army, and it is clean, untorn, unstained. His body is whole, with no pain or weariness.
He can see.
The seal still sits on his forehead, a quiet but tangible presence, a gentle pulse that doesn't quite match up with his heartbeat. Foreign, but for short times, forgettable. It's there, as though he's never died to trigger it.
What happened?
He gains nothing by standing here. Slowly, still feeling a floating sense of unreality as though his feet don't truly touch the ground, he steps forward.
Where am I?
Perhaps there will be answers. Or perhaps this is what death is. His fingers rise to touch his forehead, covered by his hitai-ate, manji pulsing beneath. Is even death not an escape, then?
Who knows?
He enters the village, silent and wondering.
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"Please explain," he said, his voice tight, somber. He needed to hear this, needed to understand. I should be dead. You... you should know of it.
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It's all said completely matter-of-factly, with an air implying that she's done this multiple times before.
She still searched his face, though. "I know it doesn't make sense, but it's true."
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It started to feel real to him in that moment.
"How far does it go?" he asked, frowning. "Could I just... walk back to where I was?"
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A moment of hesitation, then she touched his sleeve, eyes straying to that unfamiliar forehead protector of his. "Want to grab something to eat? We've got a lot to talk about."
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... A lot to talk about, yes. He nodded. "I... I suppose so." He wasn't sure if he was hungry or not, mostly too unsettled, but it was an excuse to at least not just stand here.
"Tell me," he said quietly as they walked, "does this place... heal?"
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Speaking of the other Neji... She masked a wince, fingers coming up to touch the center ring of the necklace she wore as she glanced to him. Would he respond as negatively to her, well, relationship status? Not exactly something she wanted to brooch immediately.
"Sometimes," she answered after a moment with a bit of an abbreviated shrug. "I don't know how it works, but some injuries, like, permanent injuries seem to stick around. Illness, blindness." She bit her lip and shook her head. "But people have showed up perfectly healthy, too, when the last thing they remember is dying."
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The brush of her fingers against the necklace she wore caught his attention, but he didn't recognize the links; it just seemed like a piece of jewelry to him, although he wasn't aware that Tenten was often given to wearing such things. Still, he discarded the immediate importance of it in favor of answering her words.
"I see." A frown touched his brows briefly, then lifted. "So... what is the purpose in being here? Is there anything we're here to do?"
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"Well, there's rumors that another country has been invading the ones around this one. There were bandits kidnapping people not too long ago. So far, I've been mostly spending my time training."
Her fingers stayed at that necklace for another moment until she recognized the gesture for what it was -- a comforting, reassuring motion -- and lowered her hand. "It's not such a bad place, Michi."
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"Hm." He nodded quietly. "So it sounds that at least I will be able to still be of use, then, if there is some unrest." Peace, the dream of many ninja, would ironically leave them all very much underemployed.
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"Even without that, we're working on building a school." She ducked sideways to enter the soba shop, ducking beneath the hanging cloth and holding it aside for him to enter after. "Train some of these civilian kids, kids who were born from shinobi parents who disappeared as quickly as we all arrived here, stuff like that. Where do you want to sit?"
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"So people disappear from here as well?" he asked. "Rather than simply arriving?"
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"Yeah. It's pretty weird." Unconsciously, her fingers rose to her necklace again. "Sas... someone I know disappeared for seven whole days before coming back, and he'd gone through two years in the real world. It was pretty scary."
She forced a laugh and waved to order them both green tea and soba. It probably still wasn't the right time to tell Neji about her relationship(s). Best to avoid as long as possible.
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"I don't disbelieve you," he said quietly as they waited for the food to come, "but it's a great deal to take in at once." He would probably need some time to fully come to grips with it -- not being dead was difficult enough, in all truth.
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She made a soft sound of frustration in the back of her throat. "I've seen a you who's the age we were when we first took our Chuunin exams. There's a me that age too, from an entirely different world, where Tsunade-sama isn't Hokage."
A breath of hesitation, before she added, fingers on her necklace again, "The Hokage is Uchiha Itachi instead. He's become like the Kage for this village, in fact."
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But there was something in Tenten's expression -- something weighing, something that told him his reaction wasn't an academic question to her.
"And he's the Hokage in his own world." The words felt strange on his tongue. "I... suppose that makes him a different person, inherently." An unsure statement, seeking confirmation from her, trying the concept out to see how it fit.
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"Yeah, exactly. He's -- I want you to meet him, Neji. If there was anyone who deserved the title of Kage, it's him." Her fingers never strayed from the necklace as she gave him a smile and a nod. "He's... yeah." The lightest hint of a flush colored her cheeks as she forced herself to keep from speaking further. "Maybe after we eat, I can take you to him...? I have to see him anyway to make sure he remembered to have lunch and isn't planning on staying to do paperwork all night again."
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And that last part. She had to see that he remembered to eat. She paid attention to whether he worked all night. It didn't take a genius (at least in Neji's opinion) to put together these dots.
"You care for him," he said quietly; it wasn't a question. "And you're romantically involved." The touch on her necklace said that much as well. The thought left him uncertain all over again. One thing to try and embrace a world where Uchiha Itachi was not a missing-nin -- that was one thing, that could be understood with the differences, but for Tenten -- Tenten who presumably remembered him being exactly what Neji remembered -- to have entered into a relationship with him on that basis...
Well. She was free to make her own choices. Neji wasn't her keeper. But he was her teammate, or an analogue to her teammate, or something.
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"Probably better you hear it from me than from someone else anyway, huh? Yeah I am. Have been for... almost half a year, now." She exhaled and bit her lower lip, this time glancing to the table rather than meet his eyes, fingers coming away from the necklace to instead work nervously beneath beneath the table. "Him and Sasuke both."
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Sasuke, though? Because of Sasuke, Neji had nearly died at fourteen. Had bled out far too much of his life onto the uncaring forest floor, had barely survived until the rescue team found him. For Tenten to toss that aside and reach out to Sasuke... not to mention the disturbing thought of her being shared between two brothers.
I am not her keeper, he reminded himself sharply. He had no authority over her in her personal choices -- and, truth be told, no other authority. She was not his Tenten, not from his own world.
Still, she was waiting for a response from him, and he had to give her something. "I see," he said at last, a little strangled.
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"I want you to meet him, too," she murmured finally, still without looking up. "I want you to see... they're different. They've never been anything but kind to me, for me. We train together, we live together, they're..."
Silent again for a moment, she swallowed hard and glanced away as their food was set in front of them, managing a quick forced smile and a murmur of thanks. She didn't touch it, though, instead just watching the steam. "I didn't have you," she murmured quietly, fist clenching under the table. "Or Lee. Not for a long time. And they were there. They love me."
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"Do they treat you well?" he asked instead, his wording and tone carefully controlled. "Are you happy, as things are?" Those were the important questions; it was all too possible to hurt whom you loved, and love whom you hurt. And while he would pass no judgments, he would not stand for anything or anyone hurting Tenten.
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"I am," she answered finally, glancing up to meet his eyes. "Not saying we don't have our rough spots, but -- they're the best thing that's ever happened to me. I've gotten stronger than I ever did back home, I'm... really happy. And I make them happy, too."
Even if, with Sasuke's recent disappearance and return, she'd felt more sidelined, less important... she was still there. They were hers, and she knew that, on some level, that even if Sasuke cared for his brother, he still cared for her just as much as before.
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