a gust of wind lightly blew through the area causing pieces of his hair to flutter against his back, having long since lost the hair-tie that normally held it at bay.
Hours into battle and there seemed to be no end in sight as the opponents kept coming one after another.
as neji's pale eyes skimmed around for which enemy was approaching and would reach him quickest, he unintentionally caught sight of all the bodies lying around, limp and lifeless. his stoic demeanor wavered as he recognized some of the faces but with no time to ponder as the next attacker had pummeled into his range and neji raised his hands, losing himself to focus on his chakra rather than the thick smell of blood in the air.
as his opponent and him went back and forth, neji could feel the vein's in his temples bulge as his eyes caught on to the rhythm of every motion made by the man across from him. using the byakugan to the most of it's ability, he figured out the exact-timing between every attack made on him, and neji countered his feet to land in the gentle-fist stance.
With the intent of finishing the fight quickly and moving forward to help the others, he rapidly extended his palms to hit and surgically slice through every bit of this challenger's chakra points.
as soon as contact had been made though and he lunged forward to take on the next enemy, neji could briefly sense something different altogether happening and had no time to react to what it was.
He frowned, pausing in his pursuit and looking around with his byakugan for any traces of an added disturbance, as he realized the very earth beneath his feet was trembling, but this awareness didn't come soon enough.
all at once the sky lit up and he was thrown back hard from the impact of some sort of explosion.
Moments passed. Seconds? Minutes? Maybe hours… who could know?
When he chanced opening his eyes again, with his ears ringing and hot wet blood leaking from the canals, a very blurry sight of the wreckage surrounding him came into view.
No one directly around him seemed to be moving yet and almost all had been thrown back the same way he had.
he coughed, noticing a deep pain coming from within as he did so, and heard a choked sob coming from his left.
Although most of his senses were battered from the fall, he could tell something was fast approaching him and turned much too quickly to find out, wincing and groaning from the sheer pain incited from that much movement, he fell back into his original position.
"neji…"
he could feel liquid splashing down onto his own cheeks.
he marveled at how nice the moisture felt and faintly grinned, wondering at the effort it took to do so.
"neji…" the voice cracked above him.
he finally looked up and found himself face-to-face with tenten, who was grasping his shoulders and shedding tears at a rapid rate. Neji assumed the choked sob and noticeable presence must have all been from her making her way to him.
the deep breaths he was having to take were causing his very head to throb. He felt as if he were stuck underwater, close enough to the surface to see what was just above but isolated below where the pressure to let go and float somewhere deep down was so great.
He just had to let go… but even as he let these thoughts run across his mind he gazed once again into those brown eyes directly above his.
The pain was enough to cause him to not want to think anymore. It held onto him firmly and seemed to refuse letting up even in the slightest.
"neji… don't worry. We'll get sakura to patch you up." She spoke out into the dust-scattered air.
But his eyes followed hers and they both realized the explosion hadn't seemed to affect most of the other battles going on around them, namely the one with the pink-haired kunoichi.
Neji assumed no one else saw him other than tenten who would have of course been looking, as she always did for her teammates, but his eyes found the typical wide-eyed expression of lee as he ran toward them yet stopped when he was close and stared with a look of utter horror at neji's torso.
blinking away tears from the relentless pain, the hyuga scooted up slightly, and finally found it's source.
A large and rather sharp wood chunk seemed to be protruding out of his mid-section.
"lee… lee just get sakura!" tenten's voice pleaded but neji could tell after all the years of being around her, she held some deep anguish within those few words.
Neji knew as well as his two teammates that no one could come right now. And what could they do?
They would stay by his side, no matter what the outcome seemed to be, as they had for years.
He focused his attention back on tenten and grimaced when he found his own reflection looking back at him in those watery orbs of hers. Now blood seeped from both corners of his mouth and he began to feel as though he might not withstand the torture of it all.
Her fingers softly wiped away the strained tears that his eyes had continued to shed against his own will.
"just stay awake... Neji we will get help." Her voice trembled now as she continued to struggle with the truth of the situation.
"lee… go find someone. Anyone! pLEASE!" she yelled out in distress as she held neji's vision.
But their usually energetic teammate stood there frozen.
Neji tried to speak, his throat burned to call out and get them to help others rather than him, but as he swallowed he tasted the blood that had pooled inside his mouth and blinked slowly realizing the weight of it all was too much to bear.
"neji no…. neji! Neji wake up! Please…."
The last thing he could hear was tenten wailing over his form and then everything went black.
. . . . . .
when he opened his eyes again, he blinked hard a few times, not understanding what could possibly be going on.
he thought maybe he had been trapped in an extreme form of genjutsu but found even that possibility a bit preposterous. what good would an enemy have sending him here? wherever here was... he wondered.
yet neji found his hands in front of himself forming a sign and with a quick nod, he clearly spoke out into the room "release." when nothing happened, he calmly tried again and again to no avail, finally allowing his arms to drop down to his sides and onto the bed he found himself lying in.
from the corner of his eye he saw movement and quickly called out, "hey!"
a short woman with a mess of curly hair and a genuinely sweet aura came to the doorway and walked over to the bed he lied on.
"oh good, dear. You are awake. I will let your teacher for your next class know you might be a bit late. You just stay here until you feel absolutely sure you are ready to return."
He stared at her with disbelief at the intimate term she had used and realized she must know him.
but how? I have never seen her before…
his mind continued to reel as he thought of her other statement that involved the words "class" and "teacher" as if he hadn't just been dying.
He breathed in sharply yet noticed no pain, then sat up and stared down at his torso with his mouth half-open.
Nothing was there. Nothing was wrong with him at all.
What's going on? He thought
"Where am I?" he called out to her back as she had started to leave the room.
He watched her suspiciously as she made a wry face and pointed over to the wall at a plaque.
"Konoha High School, of course." She replied then eyed him a moment longer. "Neji, are you sure you are alright?"
truthfully alright was the farthest thing neji was…