dear_mun | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Mun, I know you're upset, but please try to contain yourself.

I made my choices. This was not something I was forced into. I acted of my own free will, as I saw best. Don't you dare take that away from me.

Would I have preferred that the result were better? Of course. But the alternatives in that moment were only worse.

Do me the courtesy of respecting my decision. Only a fool would think the life of a ninja was a safe one, and I am pleased that my death served a valuable purpose. That is all.

You still have me in a game, and you don't need to canon-update me to remember how I met my end. You can comfortably ignore it as far as I'm concerned. All I ask is that you stop these needless histrionics.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Scoffs. No, but it would've been nice to at least attempt it, going off to meet her end in a blaze of glory and a storm of pure rage. But then, who would be left to look after Lee and Gai-sensei?

No one who knew them well enough, that's who.

And with her attitude shifting, the emotions start to catch up with her a bit. Her expression softens, eyes drooping to show off a hidden sort of sadness he probably didn't catch before. ]

...Did it hurt? When you...

[Exactly. And Neji doesn't want to see their whole team share his fate. If both he and Tenten fell? He doesn't doubt that Gai and Lee would not be far behind them.]

[Her question, though, is on a very different tack, and he's not the sort to give her comforting half-truths.]

Hideously.

[Because she's a warrior, too -- she deserves the unvarnished truth.]

[ Her mouth shifts, pressing her lips into a stiff, straight line as her teeth clench together at the idea that there was any sort of suffering. Because, warrior though she was, they were teammates. ]

Will you hold it against me for wanting to avenge you?

I couldn't.

[The words are soft, but they say much. That desire -- it touches something inside of him, says to him what he means to her.]

Good. [ Pinches her brows together in determination. Despite that, though, there's a softness in the way she looks away. A gentle quiet in heer tone when she speaks. ] Lee's too soft for vengence.

You never know. I believe he could find it in him.

[Given the current circumstances, anyway -- the current foe. There's little forgiveness here, when so much death and destruction has been wrought.]

In any case, both of you should... look after each other. I don't want to see the team dissolve.

[ Looks to the side. ] It's a little too late for that...

[ It's said off-hand and mostly to herself. But if he just so happens to overhear, well... little she can do about it.

Sighs. There's still bitterness and anger, and there will be for some time afterwards, she's sure. And she knows taking it out on him or blaming him isn't going to change anything. But he has to understand, it's about the only thing she can do right now, short of charging in, guns blazing.

She'd promised him she wouldn't... ]

[Oh, he hears it, all right. But he doesn't have an answer, because... really, how can he deny it? The four-man cell is no longer that. If someone else is brought in to replace him -- which, really, is going to happen if the other three stay together, he knows that well enough -- then perhaps they may be whole again, but it won't be the same.]

[ Sighs. Mutters. ]

What I wouldn't give to learn Rinne Tensei, right about now. Or even Edo Tensei.

[ But even the words leave her, she knows and understands the horror of what she's saying. Because no one could cheat death. No matter how much she wanted Neji back, alive, she knew: life was only supposed to flow in one direction. And while the mass revival after the attack from the Six Paths had been fortunate, it was a different situation. The lives of thousands meant more than the life of one. ]

[It's not something to joke about... and yet, at the same time, they're a little beyond all of that, aren't they?]

I would not ask such a thing, and you know it. Even if... even if I do wish with all my heart I could return.

[ Pushes her fingers into the fringe of her bangs, scratching along the hairline in frustration over the subject matter. It was pointless. No matter how much they wished and hoped and prayed that things were different... they wouldn't be. Couldn't.

And even though she wanted to make so many promises about his sacrifice, there were no assurance that any one of them could be kept. With Neji gone, she was the practical one of the group now. And all the lies in her resolve couldn't erase the one truth she had left to her.

Sighing, she spoke the words she had been trying to avoid this entire conversation. ]

...I'm gonna miss you, Neji.

[The only reliable truth, now. At the end - it is the end, for him. Even if his spirit finds rebirth, it will no longer be Hyuuga Neji. The person he is, the man he was becoming, is no more. This is merely the coda of his being.

But that is not a comforting truth, and he still wishes to comfort.]

And I you, Tenten. I will miss you all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only