no ssh I don't care how short this is. chapter 614 ripped my heart out and thus my shippers soul went wild. (cover art credit to kaara/thirteenths, used with permission from her!)
Ino!" Ino feels goosebumps rise to her skin at the panic in the voice that is undeniably Hinata's, and as she looks up, the blood drains from her face. "Ino, Ino please!"
Ino watches as Neji Hyuuga, the genius, the prodigy, the boy with the soft lavender eyes who kissed her before running off to fight, bleeds out in Hinata and Naruto's arms.
She swallows a cry too heavy to hold back and nods. "Put him on the mat, quickly." She rubs her hands together, willing herself to have enough chakra for this, just enough to fix him. He's on the mat and blinking so slowly it almost scares her. Almost. "Keep your eyes open, Neji, don't close them." Ino presses her hands to one of the puncture wounds and pushes chakra into his wounds as fast and she can.
But it still isn't enough, and the wounded, healing patients sitting on mats beside him know it even as she moves from wound to wound, re-stitching the muscle and weaving the fractured bones back together, fresh skin forming over older memories, over scars and raised marks. "Please," she whispers. He gives her a weak smile in response, mouthing words she only catches half of. Words that probably mean things, things that he should be able to say later because he can't die, he can't, he can't. She owes Hinata this, and Kami-sama damn them all if he dies. He has a life to live.
She feels his heart slow to a beat that makes her hands shake just as the last hole closes.
"Oh no, Neji, no, not you too, please, not you too." Tears roll down her cheeks and bring torn wails screaming from her throat, and she leans down to press her lips to his as if maybe the chakra can move faster to restart his chart that way, as if the electric feeling of her lips will reawaken him.
She opens her eyes and puts an ear to his chest and prays to the gods in the skies that his heart will start again.
The only heartbeat she can hear is her own, pounding in her ears as tears spill over.
"Neji, no, please, wake up, please!" She wants to scream but it catches in her throat and across the battlefield she can feel Hinata crying.
Hiashi and Hinata take his body away and Hiashi whispers into Ino's ears that he will have a hero's funeral when the battle is over.
She knows she won't be able to sleep. She lays a bouquet of yellow zinnias, weeping willows and phlox on his grave. Sakura takes her hand as she stands beside her, amongst the rest of her classmates and companions, and silently, begins to cry.
She goes home at night and burns candles and reads letters, mission reports, looks over photos and still knows that nothing can bring him back. Neji Hyuuga is dead. Her friend, her training partner, mission partner, gone. Ashes scattered to the wind and all that remains is the past.
The past, and his ghost, because when she closes her eyes at night and wills her mind to quiet itself, all she can see is his ghost, with sad smiles and a touch lighter than raven's feather.
He kisses the tears from her cheeks and she wonders if this is what eternal damnation feels like.
NEJJIIII you had a life to live iM SO SORRRYYYYY