Title: Is What's Inside Really Count?
Author: lexkixass
Summary: Neji has somehow landed in a place he would rather not be, and for reasons besides the obvious. (Naruto/SH xover)
Rating: R for some gore
Disclaimer: I'm not Kishimoto nor do I own anything pertaining to Silent Hill.
Neji noticed the smell only when it didn't go away. It didn't matter what direction he went in this godforsaken village. Ordinarily when the stench was this bad there was an accompanying crackle of white noise. The radio, however, was suspiciously silent.
The first few times he had thought it was Lee or Tenten trying to contact him. In the day he had been in this fog-choked place he had quickly learned otherwise...along with a few other things.
The silence still managed to unnerve him to the point he almost welcomed the worsening odor. Dirty windows in locked or rusted-shut buildings stared blindly at him as he passed. No one was in the windows that he could see--
Neji spun, and listened hard. Nothing. And yet--
The glass was dull and dark, the dust and grime giving the appearance of frost. He fleetingly wished for snow and its clean white but he knew that even if it did snow the filthy industrialness of this silent village on a hill would instantly sully the pristine flakes even before they touched earth. Gripping the bat a little more securely, Neji cautiously approached the broad window and the figure within. When he paused, so did the figure. A reflection. But not a perfect mirror.
It was more than the transparency (the image was in fact more solid than his usual experience with storefront windows), it was the gut-deep recognition and non-recognition. Neji was reflected back but it also wasn't him. A portion on his mind, an insignificant part, vehemently urged him to keep moving. His mind that was Hyuuga refused to run from something that was not a tangible(?), credible threat.
Your arrogance befits your blood. No words imagined or heard but seen. Neji could read lips as easily as someone deaf so yet while the figure's features were shrouded in silhouette the mouth was articulated just enough for the shapes of words to be discerned. But can you really see? The reflection lifted its arm. Neji inhaled sharply when his correlating arm rose also, unbidden and refusing to obey. The two hands met on the glass, and the cold was such that it burned but Neji was unable to pull away.
Meanwhile the reflection was changing. Becoming more alive as it were. Definitely more opaque. The eyes were bright, almost(?) literally glowing with intensity and strength and knowledge. And then the reflection smirked as if knowing Neji's thoughts. The Hyuuga flinched mentally at the shame of being so exposed. Even the constant invisible watch he had been under since entering this place was never this penetrating. So when the reflection's smirk became an almost-grin, Neji snarled.
He couldn't look at those eyes anymore. His gaze settled on the slowly-growing wet spot on the reflection's shirt. Can you truly see? Just because Neji's eyes weren't on the reflection's face didn't mean he wasn't aware. Are you?
"Shut up."
I say nothing. Yet still so patronizing.
"Silence speaks."
But eyes cannot listen.
"I see well enough."
A noiseless, cruel chuckle. The wet continued to spread.
Neji narrowed his eyes. There was something wrong with that wet. It reminded him of blood but even in this diffused light it wasn't red enough for that. Almost as if mixed with something more vile and unclean. He reached for his own torso with his other hand and touched dry while the reflection's fabric clung to fingers.
This time the reflection's hand moved independently of Neji's when it continued moving and opened the stained shirt. Neji gagged, his knees threatening to give out as the heady perfume of putrid, festering flesh permeated his olfactory system. His will reasserted itself and while the nausea remained it wasn't overwhelming, allowing him to study the image before him.
The chest was so rotted the ribs showed as yellowed bars over an otherwise gaping cavity. Lungs were nonexistant, blood vessels stringy spiderwebs or cracked rubber tubes, the heart a shriveled, hardened fruit-pit. Interestingly, the rot appeared to be more or less contained to that area with the heart the apparent focus. In fact, had not the shirt been affected Neji never would have been able to tell what lay beneath.
The reflection's grin was rictus.
Before Neji could try and understand, his right ear exploded with white noise before a lidless blue eye on a stalk of a neck shattered the glass from within. Honed relrexes meant he was only scratched with slivers. He swung the bat at the eye-head once, twice, and then a third time while the Eyestalk tried to get up again. Still it wasn't dead and out of sheer frustration he stomped down upon the veined, white ball. The head burst wetly, fluids splashing Neji's legs along with the shiny shards on the sidewalk. He prepared to inflict more damage but when the Eyestalk didn't even twitch, he blinked. That was the first time a downed demon had remained still after Neji ahd finished. The others all had quivered but he left them in that state, not wanting to linger. He was already walking away, but he would remember for the next time.
Because there would be a next time.