Author's Note: If you are not up to Naruto chapter 614, do not read this. Or at least, beware of spoilers . Don't say I didn't warn you.
I am devastated, guys. Legitimately devastated. I will never recover from this. I just got done crying after reading the chapter a second time. I immediately decided I had to write something in tribute. Here is the result. Somehow, I think Neji's death has hit me harder than any of the others. Itachi's killed me, but I saw it coming. I had time to prepare. Same with Jiraiya, and even Kakashi. But this. I did not see this coming. At all. He was so young and this is so wrong. But that is the lament of all men, isn't it?
God. I will never watch this show the same way again.
It was gone.
Hinata couldn't see very well through the tears, but even still, her eyes never strayed from his face. Never, not even when he slumped against Naruto, and it disappeared as his body stilled with lifelessness. No. Never. She couldn't. If she looked away, she'd have to gaze into the eyes of the man who'd killed him. If she looked away, the world would start moving again, only this time it would be a world without him in it.
No. She couldn't. She wouldn't. She'd never have to lose him if she just stayed put. No. Not her dearest cousin.
Not her Neji nii-sama.
So she didn't look away. She focused on his face, as she had been all along. On his lifeless eyes opened to slits, as if he were only resting.
But he wasn't. She knew he wasn't. It was gone.
He was gone.
No. No. No.
Distantly, Hinata could hear herself sobbing as she crawled forward on hands and knees, reaching for him as Naruto stared numbly at the ground, wide eyes filled with tears. Without so much as a vague reaction, he relinquished his grip on Neji and Hinata held her cousin's head in her lap, arms coming around to cradle his lifeless form.
Still Hinata focused on his face. On his lifeless eyes, gazing up at her. On his pale cheek, still warm to the touch, but getting ever colder as she stroked it. She gazed unending at the brother she'd loved as her own. At his unblemished forehead, where that abhorrent mark should have been.
With shaking hands, she brushed her fingers over the spot, smiling tremulously as she sobbed harder still. He was finally free of the shackles that bound him.
Free of the chains called fate that left him dead in her place.
He was gone.
Her brother. Her mentor. Her friend.
He was gone.
Gone. But happy. Free.
Something, or someone touched her shoulder, but still Hinata stayed where she was, forehead pressed against his, gazing at him through her tears. She hadn't looked away, and already she missed him.
But she never wanted to see that damnable mark again.