Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters and make no profit. I just torture them for fun.
This is not what happened, Hinata thinks, as her trembling lips fail to form the words she remembers saying.
"Pathetic," Neji says, without emotion. "That's what you are, Hinata-sama." Now he sounds almost sad.
No, that didn't happen, Hinata thinks, but she can't protest she can't do anything; she's frozen in this spot, not even in her fighting stance, just standing there, like a scared, weak, little girl.
Pathetic.
I was stronger than that, I am stronger than that, I can —
"You should be dead," Neji says. He is stating a fact.
And then he is running towards her, the distance between them morphing – stretching and shrinking at the same time and Hinata knows that this isn't real.
It's a dream –
Nightmare
And all she has to do is —
Neji is changing as he comes closer oh so slowly and if this is taking long, then the moment he reaches her, when his chakra tears into her, shredding everything she was and is and will ever be, that moment will last forever.
He is growing, aging, turning into his father, into her father.
—wakeupwakeupwakeup!
This time they don't stop him, this time they cheer.
He finds him in a field.
Kiba has been running, sniffing the air frantically, and generally freaking out for - actually he doesn't know how long he has been searching. He just knows that he has to find him. As soon as possible because something has gone horribly wrong.
He runs and runs, his lungs are burning, and there's a persistent stitch in his side, but none of that matters. He has to find him.
Trees are flying past him, or is it the other way around?
Doesn't matter.
Everything is weird and out of focus anyway and he has no time to look around. Wherever he is, Akamaru isn't here and Kiba needs to be where Akamaru is. Now, because otherwise something terrible is going to happen to him (and him means both of them – it always does).
And then the forest opens up and he's on a field and Akamaru is there, just up ahead, and Kiba knows that he's too late.
He's always too late.
The smell of Akamaru's blood is flooding his senses, turning him blind and deaf to everything else. He stumbles closer on trembling legs, wishing he didn't have to see.
But he has to see him.
Akamaru is lying on his side, completely motionless. His fur is matted with blood, turning it red in a morbid mockery of his name. When his legs finally give and he falls to his knees, Kiba might have spoken that name or screamed NO! He doesn't know, it doesn't matter anymore.
There are no words for this.
All Kiba wants to do is howl, so he does.
Shino is lying awake, staring at the grey and black ceiling. He watches the shadows above him move and warp. They crawl around –shifting, stretching − like a cloud of Kikaichu. He trusts his bugs; they are a part of him. They have been ever since he can remember, and possibly before.
He trusts them.
They don't sleep. Or at least not all of them at the same time.
Once when he was little he overheard parts of a conversation between his parents – it was late at night, but he wasn't sleeping then either.
"——— dead——— injuries were severe." His father's voice was grave. "——skull—in a coma."
He strained to hear more, but could only make out a few words here and there.
"His Kikaichu killed him." At that his mother gasped loud enough for him to hear.
"——didn't know whether he would have woken up again."
Shino pieced the shards of information together carefully. They made a horrifying picture, but he never turned away from the truth. (It's more dangerous if you let it out of your sight.)
He trusts the Kikaichu to live inside him, to feed on his chakra until —
Shino is not sleeping, he is watching
the shadows
are crawling down the walls
covering the floor
coming closer
until
the darkness
swallows him
whole
It's a beautiful day and she is in a beautiful place. Kurenai walks through the forest surrounding the training grounds, listening to the birdsong and breathing in the different scents of nature. A butterfly flutters past her and lands on a single red flower. She crouches to get a closer look at it, but it is immediately disturbed by her presence and flies away, so she examines the flower instead.
It's pretty, nothing particularly special surely, yet charming in its own simple way. Kurenai gently brushes a finger over one of the silky red petals, it trembles beneath her touch and falls off. Like a drop of blood.
Suddenly, she realizes that there is someone standing right behind her. In one fluid motion, she stands up and spins around, ready to defend herself.
It's Shikamaru. He looks devastated. All Pale skin and blood-shot eyes.
Everything is quiet now. Absolute silence and stillness and Kurenai feels as if all the oxygen has been sucked out of the air. She can't breathe.
Shikamaru doesn't say anything.
He doesn't have to.
She knows. Maybe she always knew. She had had nightmares about this moment. She thought she was prepared. That she knew what it would feel like. She wasn't, she didn't.
Nothing could be worse than this.
Shikamaru delivers his message.
Kurenai wakes up.
She lies gasping for a second, then still half asleep, she reaches out to touch the man lying next to her. Her hand finds nothing but the cool, smooth surface of the mattress. She rolls onto her side and stares at the empty space where her boyfriend used to sleep.
He will never be there again.
She will never touch him again.
The realization is a kunai twisting in her guts.
There are worse things than nightmares.